<£I9 



LiBPARY 

Foreign Tj#o Advisers 

Depart^nt of State 

„_.^..i 



^L9. 







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AMERICA'S RELATION TO 
THE WORLD CONFLICT 

AND TO 

THE COMING PEACE 



tE^fje Annals! 



Volume LXXII 



July, 1917 



Editor: CLYDE LYNDON KING 

Assistant Editor: E. M. PATTERSON 

Associate Editor: JOSEPH H. WILLITS 

Editor Book Dept.: C. H. CRENNAN 

Editorial Council: J. C. BALLAGH, THOMAS CONWAY, Jr., C. H. CRENNAN. 

S. S. HUEBNER, CARL KELSEY, CLYDE LYNDON KING, J. P. LICH- 

TENBERGER. ROSWELL C. McCREA, SCOTT NEARING, 

E. M. PATTERSON, T. W. VAN METRE, 

F. D. WATSON, JOSEPH H. WILLITS. 




The American Academy of Political and Social Science 
»^ 36th and Woodland Avenue 

Philadelphia 
1917 






Copyright, 1917, by 

The American Academy of Political and Social Science 

AH rights reserved 




TRANSFER 
2 

Stt^ 22 1943 
ISejiii .-tecui a Division 

Copy - -^ - 



EUROPEAN AGENTS 



England: P. S. King & Son, Ltd., 2 Great Smith Street, Westminster, London, S. W, 
France: L.Larose, Rue Soufflot, 22, Paris. „ ,- xt w 

Germany: Mayer & Muller, 2 Prinz Louis Ferdinandstrasse, Berhn, N^W. 
Italy: Giornale Degli Economisti, via Monte Savello, Palazzo Orsmi, Rome. 
Spain: E. Dossat, 9 Plaza de Santa Ana, Madrid. 



CONTENTS 

FOREWORD vii 

L. S. Rowe, President 

PART I— AMERICA'S RELATION TO THE WORLD CONFLICT 

THE WORLD CONFLICT IN ITS RELATION TO AMERICAN 

DEMOCRACY 1 

Walter Lippmann, Editorial Staff, New Republic, New York. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR MISSION IN THIS WAR 10 

Miles M. Dawson, LL.D., New York. 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE WAR 13 

Samuel T. Dutton, LL.D., New York. 

PLANNING THE FUTURE AMERICA 19 

Henry A. Wise Wood, New York. 

GROWTH OF INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 23 

Arthur E. Holder, Legislative Representative, American Federation 
of Labor. 

THE WAR IN ITS RELATION TO DEMOCRACY AND WORLD 

ORDER 28 

Emily Greene Balch, Emergency Peace Federation, New York. 

PEACE WITHOUT FORCE 31 

S. N. Patten, University of Pennsylvania. 

PAX AMERICANA 40 

George W. Kirchwey, LL.D., President of American Peace Society. 

PART II— AMERICA'S OBLIGATION AS THE DEFENDER 
OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHT 

THE INTERNATIONAL RIGHT AMERICA MUST CHAMPION . . 49 
Roland G. Usher, Ph.D., Professor of History, Washington University, 
St. Louis. 

NEUTRAL RIGHTS UPON THE SEAS 58 

Frederic R. Coudert, New York. 

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 65 

Chandler P. Anderson, New York. 

PART III — ELEMENTS OF A JUST AND DURABLE PEACE 

ELEMENTS OF A JUST AND DURABLE PEACE 76 

PhiUp Marshall BrowTi, Princeton University. 
iii 



iv Contents 

THE BASES OF A JUST AND 'ENDURING PEACE 83 

Franklin H. Giddings, Ph.D., LL.D., Columbia University, New York. 

ON WHAT PRINCIPLES IS THE SOCIETY OF STATES TO BE 

FOUNDED? 89 

Henri La Fontaine, Member of Belgian Senate, Brussels, Belgium. 

DISARMAMENT AND INTERNATIONAL COURTS PREREQUI- 
SITES TO A DURABLE PEACE 92 

James L. Slayden, Member of Congress from Texas. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE AMERICAN POLICY OF 
ISOLATION IN RELATION TO A JUST AND DURABLE PEACE 100 
JohnH. Latan6, Ph. D.,LL.D.,JohnsHopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 

PART IV— THE PROBLEMS OF A DURABLE PEACE 

TWO EVENTS THAT PRESAGE A DURABLE PEACE 110 

Oscar S. Straus, Chairman, Public Service Commission, New York. 

A BASIS FOR A DURABLE PEACE BETWEEN GERMANY AND 

ENGLAND 113 

WilUam C. BulUtt, Philadelphia. 

THE DISPOSITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE 118 

Talcott Williams, Columbia University, New York City. 

Japan, America and durable peace 124 

Toyokichi lyenaga, Ph.D., Professorial Lecturer in Political Science, 
University of Chicago; Director, "East and West News Bureau," 
New York. 
FOUNDATIONS FOR A DURABLE PEACE BETWEEN THE UNITED 

STATES AND JAPAN 129 

Hans von Kaltenborn, Assistant Managing Editor of The Brooklyn 
Daily Eagle. 
NATIONALITY AND FREEDOM OF COMMERCE PREREQUI- 
SITES TO A DURABLE PEACE 131 

Stephen P. Duggan, Ph.D., College of City of New York, New York. 

THE ECONOMIC FACTORS IN AN ENDURING PEACE 136 

E. E. Pratt, Ph.D., Chief of Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Com- 
merce, Washington, D. C. 
INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM OF THE PRESS ESSENTIAL TO A 

DURABLE PEACE 139 

David Lawrence, Washington Correspondent, New York Evening Post. 

PART V— RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS 
SOVEREIGNTY AND RACE AS AFFECTED BY A LEAGUE OF 

NATIONS 142 

Theodore Marburg, formerly United States Minister to Belgium. 



Contents v 

THE INTERESTS AND RIGHTS OF NATIONALITY 147 

C. E. McGuire, Ph.D., Assistant Secretary, International High Com- 
mission. 

"A MESSAGE FROM SYRIA" 153 

Mrs. Layyah A. Barakat, Philadelphia. 

THE BOHEMIAN QUESTION 155 

Charles Pergler, Cresco, Iowa. 

THE RIGHTS OF THE JEWS AS A NATION 160 

J. L. Magnes, New York. 

THE RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS IN AMERICA: THE REPUB- 
LICS OF THE CARIBBEAN 165 

Oswald Garrison Villard, President of the New York Evening Post 
Company. 

THE RIGHTS OF SMALL AMERICAN NATIONS: NICARAGUA 

AND COLOMBIA 172 

Henry R. Mussey, Ph.D., Columbia University, New York. 

PART VI— AMERICAN PARTICIPATION IN A LEAGUE FOR 
THE MAINTENANCE OF A JUST AND DURA- 
BLE PEACE 

"WAR TO STOP WAR" 178 

John Sharp Williams, United States Senator from Mississippi. 

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 185 

Walter L. Fisher, Chicago. 

OUR COMPULSORY ARBITRATION TREATIES SHOULD BE 

AMENDED 200 

George W. Wickersham, New York. 

A YEARNING FOR WORLD PEACE 208 

James M. Beck, New York. 

MORAL INFLUENCES IN A DURABLE PEACE 216 

Don C. Seitz, Manager, New York World, New York. 

EQUIPMENT FOR THE POST BELLUM PERIOD 2l9 

Charles H. Sherrill, New York. 

DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION OF THE COMING PEACE CON- 
FERENCE 222 

Edward A. Filene. 

INDEX 227 



FOREWORD 

It will be of interest to the members of the Academy to know 
that the Annual Meeting Committee had completed plans to devote 
the Twenty-first Annual Meeting to a topic quite different from that 
which was finally selected. The change was made immediately 
after the delivery of the President's momentous address to the 
Senate on the 22d of January, 1917. The international program, 
outlined by the President in this message, made it incumbent on a 
national organization such as the Academy to bring to bear on the 
vital issues involved the best thought of the country. 

With the outbreak of the war there were some of our members 
who felt that the Academy should abandon the idea of holding a 
national conference on our foreign policy at a time when the United 
States was actively participating in the conflict. After the most 
careful consideration of the situation, the officers of the Academy 
and the Annual Meeting Committee reached the conclusion that the 
fact that the United States was engaged in the conflict made the 
obligation all the more clear to consider in a scientific and non-parti- 
san spirit the great issues involved. 

The expectations entertained have been fully justified by the 
widespread national interest aroused by the discussions of the recent 
annual meeting. The Academy is under obligation to those who 
participated in the sessions, not only for their valuable contributions 
but also because of the elevated spirit, free from prejudice and parti- 
sanship, which dominated all the speakers. The officers of the Acad- 
emy also desire to take this opportunity to express a deep sense of 
appreciation to those who served on the several committees, as well 
as to the contributors to the special Annual Meeting Fund which 
made it possible to hold so momentous a national conference. 

L. S. RowE, 
President. 



THE WORLD CONFLICT IN ITvS RELATION TO 
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

By Walter Lippmann, 
Editorial Staff, New Republic, New York. 



The way in which President Wilson directed America's entrance 
into the war has had a mighty effect on the pubhc opinion of the 
world. Many of those who are disappointed or pleased say they 
are surprised. They would not be surprised had they made it their 
business this last year to understand the policy of their government. 

In May, 1916, the President made a speech which will be counted 
among the two or three decisive utterances of American foreign 
policy. The Sussex pledge had just been extracted from the Ger- 
man government, and on the surface American neutrality seemed 
assured. The speech was an announcement that American isola- 
tion was ended, and that we were prepared to join a League of Peace. 
This was the foundation of all that followed, and it was intended to 
make clear to the world that America would not abandon its tradi- 
tional policy for imperialistic adventure, that if America had to fight 
it would fight for the peace and order of the world. It was a great 
portent in human history, but it was overshadowed at the time by 
the opening of the presidential campaign. 

Through the summer the President insisted again and again 
that the time had come when America must assume its share of re- 
sponsibility for a better organization of mankind. In the early 
autumn very startling news came from Germany. It was most 
confusing because it promised peace maneuvers, hinted at a separate 
arrangement with the Russian court party, and at the resumption 
of unlimited submarine warfare. The months from November to 
February were to tell the story. Never was the situation more per- 
plexing. The prestige of the Allies was at low ebb, there was 
treachery in Russia, and, as Mr. Lansing said, America was on the 
verge of war. We were not only on the verge of war, but on the verge 
of a bewildering war which would not command the whole-hearted 
support of the American people. 

1 



2 The Annals of the American Academy 

With the election past, and a continuity of administration as- 
sured, it became President Wilson's task to make some bold move 
which would clarify the muddle. While he was preparing this move, 
the German chancellor made his high-handed proposal for a blind 
conference. That it would be rejected was obvious. That the re- 
jection would be followed by the submarine war was certain. The 
danger was that America would be drawn into the war at the mo- 
ment when Germany appeared to be offering the peace for which the 
bulk of American people hoped. We know now that the peace Ger- 
many was prepared to make last December was the peace of a con- 
queror. But at the time Germany could pose as a nation which had 
been denied a chance to end the war. It was necessary, therefore, 
to test the sincerity of Germany by asking pubhcly for a statement 
of terms. The President's circular note to the powers was issued. 
This note stated more precisely than ever before that America was 
ready to help guarantee the peace, and at the same time it gave all 
the belligerents a chance to show that they were fighting for terms 
which could be justified to American opinion. The note was very 
much misunderstood at first because the President had said that, 
since both sides claimed to be fighting for the same things, neither 
could well refuse to define the terms. The misunderstanding soon 
passed away when the repHes came. Germany brushed the Presi- 
dent aside, and showed that she wanted a peace by intrigue. The 
AlUes produced a document which contained a number of formulae 
so cleverly worded that they might be stretched to cover the wildest 
demands of the extremists or contracted to a moderate and just 
settlement. Above all the Allies assented to the League of Peace 
which Germany had dismissed as irrelevant. 

The war was certain to go on with America drawn in. On 
January 22, after submarine warfare had been decided upon but 
before it had been proclaimed, the President made his address to the 
Senate. It was an international program for democracy. It was 
also a last appeal to German liberals to avert a catastrophe. They 
did not avert it, and on February 1 Germany attacked the whole neu- 
tral world. That America would not submit was assured. The ques- 
tion that remained to be decided was the extent of our participation 
in the war. Should it be merely defensive on the high seas, or 
should it be a separate war? The real source of confusion was the 
treacherous and despotic Russian government. By no twist of 



The World Conflict and American Democracy 3 

language could a partnership with that government be made con- 
sistent with the principles laid down by the President in his address 
to the Senate. 

The Russian Revolution ended that perplexity and we could 
enter the war with a clear conscience and a whole heart. When 
Russia became a Republic and the American Republic became an 
enemy, the German empire was isolated before mankind as the final 
refuge of autocracy. The principle of its life is destructive of the 
peace of the world. How destructive that principle is, the ever- 
widening circle of the war has disclosed. 

II 

Our task is to define that danger so that our immense sacrifices 
shall serve to end it. I cannot do that for myself without turning 
to the origins of the war in order to trace the logical steps by which 
the pursuit of a German victory has enhsted the enmity of the world. 

We read statements by Germans that there was a conspiracy 
against their national development, that they found themselves en- 
circled by enemies, that Russia, using Serbia as an instrument, was 
trying to destroy Austria, and that the Entente had already detached 
Italy. Supposing that all this were true, it would remain an extraor- 
dinary thing that the Entente had succeeded in encircling Ger- 
many. Had that empire been a good neighbor in Europe, by what 
miracle could the old hostility between England and France and 
Russia have been wiped out so quickly? But there is positive evi- 
dence that no such conspiracy existed. 

Germany's place in the sun is Asia Minor. By the Anglo- 
German agreement of June, 1914, recently pubHshed, a satisfactory 
arrangement had been reached about the economic exploitation of 
the Turkish empire. Professor Rohrbach has acknowledged that 
Germany was given concessions "which exceeded all expectations," 
and on December 2, 1914, when the war was five months old, von 
Bethmann-Hollweg declared in the Reichstag that "this under- 
standing was to lessen every possible pohtical friction." The place 
in the sun had been secured by negotiation. 

But the road to that place lay through Austria-Hungary and 
the Balkans. It was this highway which Germany determined to 
control absolutely; and the chief obstacle on that highway was 
Serbia backed by Russia. Into the complexities of that Balkan 



4 The Annals of the American Academy 

intrigue I am not competent to enter. We need, however, do no 
more than follow Lord Grey in the belief that Austria had a genuine 
grievance against Serbia, a far greater one certainly than the United 
States has ever had against Mexico. But Britain had no stake in 
the Austro-Serbian quarrel itself. 

It had an interest in the method which the central powers took 
of settling the quarrel. When Germany declared that Europe could 
not be consulted, that Austria must be allowed to crush Serbia with- 
out reference to the concert of Europe, Germany proclaimed herself 
an enemy of international order. She preferred a war which in- 
volved all of Europe to any admission of the fact that a cooperative 
Europe existed. It was an assertion of unlimited national sover- 
eignty which Europe could not tolerate. 

This brought Russia and France into the field. Instantly Ger- 
many acted on the same doctrine of unlimited national sovereignty 
by striking at France through Belgium. Had Belgium been merely 
a small neutral nation the crime would still have been one of the 
worst in the history of the modern world. The fact that Belgium 
was -an internationalized state has made the invasion the master 
tragedy of the war. For Belgium represented what progress the 
world had made towards cooperation. If it could not survive then 
no internationalism was possible. That is why through these years 
of horror upon horror, the Belgian horror is the fiercest of all. The 
burning, the shooting, the starving, and the robbing of small and 
inoffensive nations is tragic enough. But the German crime in Bel- 
gium is greater than the sum of Belgium's misery. It is a crime 
against the bases of faith at which the world must build or perish. 

The invasion of Belgium instantly brought the five British 
democracies into the war. I think this is the accurate way to state 
the fact. Had the war remained a Balkan war with France engaged 
merely because of her treaty with Russia, had the fighting been con- 
fined to the Franco-German frontier, the British empire might have 
come into the war to save the balance of power and to fulfill the naval 
agreements with France but the conflict would probably never have 
become a people's war in all the free nations of the empire. What- 
ever justice there may have been in Austria's original quarrel with 
Serbia and Russia was overwhelmed l^y the exhibition of national 
lawlessness in Belgium. 

This led to the third great phase of the war, the phase which 



The World Conflict and American Democracy 5 

concerned America most immediately. The Allies directed by Great 
Britain employed sea power to the utmost. They barred every road 
to Germany, and undoubtedly violated many commercial rights of 
neutrals. What America would do about this became of decisive 
importance. If it chose to uphold the rights it claimed, it would aid 
Germany and cripple the Alhes. If it refused to do more than ne- 
gotiate with the Allies, it had, whatever the technicahties of the case 
might be, thrown its great weight against Germany. It had earned 
the enmity of the German government, an enmity which broke out 
into intrigue and conspiracy on American soil. Somewhere in the 
winter of 1915, America was forced to choose between a policj' which 
helped Germany and one which helped the Allies. We were con- 
fronted with a situation in which we had to choose between opening 
a road to Germany and making an enemy of Germany. With the 
proclamation of submarine warfare in 1915 we were told that either 
we must aid Germany by crippling sea power or be treated as a hos- 
tile nation. The German pohcy was very simple: British mastery 
of the seas must be broken. It could be broken by an American at- 
tack from the rear or by the German submarine. If America re- 
fused to attack from the rear, America was to 'be counted as an 
enemy. It was a case of he who is not for me is against me. 

To such an alternative there was but one answer for a free people 
to make. To become the ally of the conqueror of Belgium against 
France and the British democracies was utterly out of the question. 
Our choice was made and the supreme question of American policy 
became: how far will Germany carry the war against us and how 
hard shall we strike back? That we were aligned on the side of Ger- 
many's enemies no candid man, I think, can deny. The effect of 
this alignment was to make sea power absolute. For master}'' of 
the seas is no longer the possession of any one nation. The suprem- 
acy of the British navy in this war rests on international consent, on 
the consent of her allies and of the neutrals. Without that consent 
the blockade of Germany could not exist, and the decision of America 
not to resist allied sea power was the final blow which cut ofi" Ger- 
many from the world. It happened gradually, without spectacular 
announcement, but history, I think, will call it one of the decisive 
events of the war. 

The effect was to denj^ Germany access to the resources of the 
neutral world, and to open these resources to the Allies. Poetic 



6 The Annals of the American Academy 

justice never devised a more perfect retribution. The nation which 
had struck down a neutral to gain a military advantage found the 
neutral world a partner of its enemies. 

That partnership between the neutral world and Germany's 
enemies rested on merchant shipping. This suggested a new theory 
of warfare to the German government. It decided that since every 
ship afloat fed the resources of its enemies, it might be a good idea to 
sink every ship afloat. It decided that since all the highways of the 
world were the communications of the AlUes, those communications 
should be cut. It decided that if enough ships were destroyed, it 
didn't matter what ships or whose ships, England and France would 
have to surrender and make a peace on the basis of Germany's vic- 
tories in Europe. 

Therefore, on the 31st of January, 1917, Germany abolished 
neutrahty in the world. The poUcy which began by denying that a 
quarrel in the Balkans could be referred to Europe, went on to de- 
stroy the internationalized state of Belgium, culminated in indis- 
criminate attack upon the merchant shipping of all nations. The 
doctrine of exclusive nationalism had moved through these three 
dramatic phases until those who held it were at war with mankind. 

Ill 

The terrible logic of Germany's pohcy had a stupendous result. 
By striking at the bases of all international order, Germany con- 
vinced even the most isolated of neutrals that order must be pre- 
served by common effort. By denying that a society of nations 
exists, a society of nations has been forced into existence. The very 
thing Germany challenged Germany has established. Before 1914 
only a handful of visionaries dared to hope for some kind of federa- 
tion. The orthodox view was that each nation had a destiny of its 
own, spheres of influence of its own, and that it was somehow beneath 
the dignity of a great state to discuss its so-called vital interests with 
other governments. It was a world almost without common aspira- 
tion, with few effective common ideals. Europe was split into shift- 
ing alliances, democracies and autocracies jumbled together. Amer- 
ica lay apart with a budding imperialism of its own. China was 
marked as the helpless victim of exploitation. That old political 
system was one in which the German view was by no means alto- 



The World Conflict and American Democracy 7 

gether disreputable. Internationalism was half-hearted and gener- 
ally regarded somewhat cynically. 

What Germany did was to demonstrate ad nauseam the doctrine 
of competitive nationalism. Other nations had applied it here and 
there cautiously and timidly. No other nation in our time had ever 
applied it with absolute logic, with absolute preparation, and with 
absolute disregard of the consequences. Other nations had dallied 
with it, compromised about it, muddled along with it. But Ger- 
many followed through, and Germany taught the world just where 
the doctrine leads. 

Out of the necessities of defense men against it have gradually 
formulated the ideals of a cooperative nationalism. From all parts 
of the world there has been a movement of ideals working slowly 
towards one end, towards a higher degree of spiritual unanimity 
than has ever been known before. China and India have been 
stirred out of their dependence. The American Republic has aban- 
doned its isolation. Russia has become something like a Republic. 
The British empire is moving towards closer federation. The 
Grand Alliance called into existence by the German aggression is 
now something more than a military coalition. Common ideals are 
working through it — ideals of local autonomy and joint action. 
Men are crying that they must be free and that they must be united. 
They have learned that they cannot be free unless they cooperate, 
that they cannot cooperate unless they are free. 

I do not wish to underestimate the forces of reaction in our coun- 
try or in the other nations of the AlHance. There are politicians and 
commercial groups who see in this whole thing nothing but oppor- 
tunity to secure concessions, manipulate tariffs and extend the 
bureaucracies. We shall know how to deal with them. Forces 
have been let loose which they can no longer control, and out of this 
immense horror ideas have arisen to possess men's souls. There 
are times when a prudent statesman must build on a contracted view 
of human nature. But there are times when new sources of energy 
are tapped, when the impossible becomes possible, when events out- 
run our calculations. This may be such a time. The Alliance to 
which we belong has suddenly grown hot with the new democracy 
of Russia and the new internationalism of America. It has had an 
access of spiritual force which opens a new prospect in the policies 
of the world. We can dare to hope for things which we never dared 



8 The Annals of the American Academy 

to hope for in the past. In fact if those forces are not to grow cold 
and frittered they must be turned to a great end and offered a great 
hope. 

IV 

That great end and that great hope is nothing less than the 
Federation of the World. I know it sounds a little old-fashioned to 
use that phrase because we have abused it so long in empty rhetoric. 
But no other idea is big enough to describe the Alliance. It is no 
longer an offensive-defensive military agreement among diplomats. 
That is how it started to be sure. But it has grown, and is growing, 
into a union of peoples determined to end forever that intriguing, 
adventurous nationalism which has torn the world for three cen- 
turies. Good democrats have always believed that the common 
interests of men were greater than their special interests, that ruHng 
classes can be enemies, but that the nations must be partners. Well, 
this war is being fought by nations. It is the nations who were called 
to arms, and it is the force of nations that is now stirring the world 
to its foundations. 

The war is dissolving into a stupendous revolution. A few 
months ago we still argued about the Bagdad corridor, strategic 
frontiers, colonies. Those were the stakes of the diplomat's war. 
The whole perspective is changed today by the revolution in Russia 
and the intervention of America. The scale of values is transformed, 
for the democracies are unlcTosed. Those democracies have nothing 
to gain and everything to lose by the old competitive nationalism, 
the old apparatus of diplomacy, with its criminal rivalries in the 
backward places of the earth. The democracies, if they are to be 
safe, must cooperate. For the old rivalries mean friction and arma- 
ment and a distortion of all the hopes of free government. They 
mean that nations are organized to exploit each other and to exploit 
themselves. That is the life of what we call autocracy. It estab- 
lishes its power at home by pointing to enemies abroad. It fights 
its enemies abroad by dragooning the population at home. 

That is why practically the whole world is at war with the great- 
est of the autocracies. That is why the whole world is turning so 
passionately towards democracy as the only principle on which peace 
can be secured. Many have feared, I know, that the war against 
Prussian militarism would result the other way, that instead of 



The World Conflict and American Democracy 9 

liberalizing Prussia the outcome would be a prussianization of the 
democracies. That would be the outcome if Prusso-Germany won. 
That would be the result of a German victory. And that is why we 
who are the most peaceful of democracies are at war. The success 
of the submarine would give Germany victory. It was and is her 
one great chance. To have stood aside when Germany made this 
terrible bid for victory would have been to betray the hope of free 
government and international union. 

V 

There are two ways now in which peace can be made. The 
first is by political revolution in German}' and Austria-Hungary. 
It is not for us to define the nature of that revolution. We cannot 
dictate liberty to the German people. It is for them to decide what 
political institutions they will adopt, but if peace is to come through 
revolution we shall know that it has come when new voices are heard 
in Germany, new policies are proclaimed, when there is good evidence 
that there has, indeed, been a new orientation. If that is done the 
war can be ended by negotiation. 

The other path to peace is by the definite defeat of every item 
in the program of aggression. Tliis will mean, at a minimum, a 
demonstration on the field that the German army is not invincible; 
a renunciation by Germany of all the territory she has conquered; a 
special compensation to Belgium; and an acknowledgment of the 
fallacy of exclusive nationalism by an application for membership 
in the League of Nations. 

Frontier questions, colonial questions, are now entirely sec- 
ondary, and beyond this minimum program the United States has 
no direct interest in the territorial settlement. The objects for 
which we are at war will be attained if we can defeat absolutely the 
foreign policy of the present German government. For a ruling 
caste wliich has been humiliated abroad has lost its glamor at home. 
So we are at war to defeat the German government in the outer 
world, to destroy its prestige, to deny its conquests, and to throw it 
back at last into the arms of the German people marked and dis- 
credited as the author of their miseries. It is for them to make the 
final settlement with it. 

If it is our privilege to exert the power which turns the scale, it 
is our duty to see that the end justifies the means. We can win 



10 The Annals of the American Academy 

nothing from this war unless it culminates in a union of liberal 
peoples pledged to cooperate in the settlement of all outstanding 
questions, sworn to turn against the aggressor, determined to erect 
a larger and more modern system of international law upon a federa- 
tion of the world. That is what we are fighting for, at this moment, 
on the ocean, in the shipyard and in the factory, later perhaps in 
France and Belgium, ultimately at the council of peace. 

If we are strong enough and wise enough to win this victory, to 
reject all the poison of hatred abroad and intolerance at home, we 
shall have made a nation to which free men will turn with love and 
gratitude. For ourselves we shall stand committed as never before 
to the realization of democracy in America. We who have gone to 
war to insure democracy in the world will have raised an aspiration 
here that will not end with the overthrow of the Prussian autocracy. 
We shall turn with fresh interests to our own tyrannies — to our 
Colorado mines, our autocratic steel industries, our sweatshops and 
our slums. We shall call that man un-American and no patriot who 
prates of liberty in Europe and resists it at home. A force is loose 
in America as well. Our own reactionaries will not assuage it with 
their Billy Sundays or control through lawyers and politicians of the 
Old Guard. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR MISSION IN THIS WAR 

By Miles M. Dawson, LL.D., 
New York. 

The part which the United States should play in the war, and 
in making the treaty of peace, should be determined by the things 
upon which this government rests, for which it stands and the prac- 
ticabihty of which it has demonstrated. 

These fundamental things, as is recognized throughout the 
world, with dread by beneficiaries of autocracy, with tears and 
thanksgiving by friends of freedom, are few, but most important 
to mankind. Our triumphant justification of them brought to- 
gether, out of all the nations of Europe, this great people, enabled 
France to find her way to a stable republic, made all American states 
repubhcan, liberaHzed all governments the world over and, as a lode- 



Our Mission in the War 11 

star, drew the half-wakened peoples of China and of Russia along 
the road to freedom under institutions modelled on our own. 
These fundamentals may be epitomized into five : 

1. The inalienable right of every man to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness — not as a mere dead saying, but as a living 
reality. 

2. The right of local self-government, within territories 
possessing or entitled to claim such right, embracing every power 
of government not expressly granted to the union. 

3. The guaranty to each state of a forum for the redress of 
grievances of one state against another with full power to enforce 
the verdict of that forum. 

4. The guaranty of a republican form of government to each 
constituent state. 

5. The right and duty to maintain the union. 

The United States, though b}^ tradition and on principle neutral 
as regards quarrels between European nations, is forced into this 
war to defend the lives of its own citizens, engaged in peaceful 
pursuits and protected by international law and solemn treaties. 
The crucial issue which has driven our republic into the arena is to 
champion what the fathers of the republic rightly termed the in- 
alienable rights of man. It would be quite impossible for this 
nation to retrace the step which it has taken, were the central 
powers merely to offer to respect the rights of our citizens and to 
make amends; the issue now is that, as regards all neutrals peaceably 
attending to their own business, these inahenable rights must be 
respected. The other things for which this nation stands are not 
involved so openly; they are not directly at issue. But are they 
not hkely, even almost certain, to be determined at the same time 
and by the same arbitrament and thus the principles which our 
nation has established by demonstrating their practicability, to be 
incorporated into the treaty of peace? 

For instance, what else does the proposition signify that small 
and weak nations shall be protected and be preserved, but that 
states and their peoples shall enjoy the right of self-government? 
And that this is to be protected implies, in turn, that the union of 
states which is to protect it, shall, acting together, be granted 
authority to adjust interstate issues and to enforce the verdict. 
Is not recognition of this essential, if situations Hke that which arose 
regarding Serbia are to be dealt with otherwise than by war? Or if 



12 The Annals of the American Academy 

violation of neutrality and destruction of small nations, such as in 
the case of Belgium, are to be avoided? 

It is a long step toward the realization of the fourth principle, 
that each such state should be guaranteed a republican form of 
government; but it seems not unlikely that it will be taken. 
Casting off their shackles, the peoples of China and of Russia have 
shown not only that Germans, Austrians and Turks might do like- 
wise, but also that, in order to avoid the loss of honor and a remnant 
of power, monarchs may be inclined to yield the real reins of govern- 
ment to representative assemblies. This may, and probably will, 
be as far as this principle will be realized at present in some of the 
countries; but even so, it could not be expected that the peace of 
nations would be preserved if each were to be exposed to the peril of 
overthrow of its constitution by a tyrant. No union of nations, 
whether formally so organized or not, could maintain itself, without 
defending each nation in the enjoyment of republican institutions. 
The guaranty must, in the nature of things, be given ; whether openly 
or impliedly, while important, is not all-important. 

The United States has found it unavoidable to accept the 
burden of this guaranty even as regards states with which it has no 
express or binding union. Thus it has had to protect Mexico 
against the overturn of its republican government by Huerta, and 
Cuba against a like overturn by Gomez, not to speak of intervention 
in San Domingo and Costa Rica. It will also be impossible to avoid 
such guaranty, when, through some sort of joint agency, the nations 
undertake to protect the sovereignty of individual states, viz., a 
guaranty that the peoples are really represented — even though in 
some cases misrepresented — in the government of the states that 
compose the union of nations. 

The fifth fundamental principle, that such union of nations 
must be maintained and that no nation will be permitted to with- 
draw, may seem yet further from realization. Indeed it is not 
probable that it will be included in any treaty. But one must 
remember it was not in the federal constitution ; yet it was enforced 
when secession was attempted. Secession from the union of states, 
composing this nation, is thinkable, however; but is it even thinkable 
that, once a world union is estabhshed, any nation would be per- 
mitted to retire? 

Consider that, if the other nations remained united and were 



United States and the War 13 

much the stronger, it would mean that the withdrawing nation 
would be subject to their discipline but without a voice in their 
councils. This, only to enable it to shirk the common burden! If it 
sought to withdraw, rather than submit to control for the common 
good, that could not be suffered; if it withdrew as an act of defiance, 
its challenge would have to be accepted or the union would fall apart. 
The logic of events would thus compel the maintenance of the union. 

Even by men who give much attention to international subjects 
and the study of government, it is not always so clearly seen as it 
should be that this nation has demonstrated that all these five things 
of so great importance to mankind are actually realizable. Yet this 
is the crowning achievement of the United States! Fewer, no doubt, 
have appreciated that already several of these things have proved 
necessary as an extra-territorial exercise of this nation's powers. 
Yet this is evidence of the great service of the United States in 
showing the way and of the great need for the extension of these 
principles to all nations. 

Out of this example set by our nation and out of its righteous 
participation in this war with these purposes in view, there should 
come the application of these principles to the solution of the world's 
problems as the practical way to guarantee liberty to all nations, all 
peoples, all men. 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE WAR 

By Samuel T. Dutton, LL.D., 

New York. 

For nearly one hundred and fifty years we have been engaged 
in building a nation. At the Ijottom of all our endeavors there was 
a religious spirit and we have developed a tradition for honesty and 
fair dealing. We fought for Hberty and for the preservation of the 
Union. As we review the history of those conflicts our conscience 
is clear. Great benefits have come to the world because liberty and 
union have triumphed on this continent. Other occasions where we 
have taken up arms we do not review with the same complacency. 
Our territory is vast and full of potential wealth and no longer can 
we say of different sections of our domain that the inhabitants are 
English 9V Dutch or Spanish. Aroerjpa i§ tht? home of 9^11 peoples 



14 The Annals of the American Academy 

and our large cities are more cosmopolitan then were ancient Rome 
or Bj'zantium. Of some countries it may be said that there are 
more of their people in America than in the home land. 

Never before has there been in any land such assimilation of 
diverse elements. The public school has done its full part and 
freedom of opportunity has done the rest. A great experiment in 
democracy has been successfully tried and we are one in spirit and 
purpose if not in blood. Witness how the people have responded to 
the President's call. Party Hues have vanished. Democrats, 
Repubhcans, Socialists and Suffragists are all of one mind. There 
is a discordant element and it has made much noise but has prob- 
ably done no serious harm. From the north, the south, the east 
and the west is heard the voice of patriotism and better than that 
is the calm and steady readiness of the people to do their full part 
in the great struggle. America with her forty-eight states and her 
wonderful variety in climate, relief and population is not hetero- 
geneous as regards national character and ideals. 

Her relation to the great conflict will be one of both cause and 
elTect thinking of national self-consciousness and sohdarity. War 
is a terrible curse but it has this virtue: that when the cause is a 
righteous one it unites all factions, promotes comradeship and 
draws into a common brotherhood persons differing widely in 
belief, rank, creed and vocation. 

And what, let us ask, is the justification which impels a peace 
loving people to plunge into a struggle the most terrible the world 
has known? The answer is found partly in the political principles 
underlying our common welfare and partly in the constituent 
elements which make up our population. To put it bluntly we are 
friends of the Allies either through kinship or political belief, or else 
because of the outrages committed by the enemies of mankind. 

This is no ordinary war. The issues at stake are profound. It 
is evident that there can be no safety for free institutions, much 
less for lasting peace, unless this hydra headed monster of militarism 
is destroyed. Here then is one most important relation which 
America bears to the war. It is that of a nation desiring world 
peace summoned by the voice of honor and humanity to join other 
peace loving nations in suppressing a gigantic evil. 

Another relation of America to the war is that of our relative 
unpreparedness. In the eyes of many this is to be deplored and some 



United States and the War 15 

have thought it to be a national crime. I cannot agree with that 
point of view. If Great Britain and France had been prepared as 
Germany was it would have been difficult to say who caused the 
war. France was only moderately prepared and did not wish the 
war.- Russia wished to avoid it. The communications of Sir Ed- 
ward Grey to the Central Powers during the few days preceding 
the war show conclusively that Great Britain earnestly sought to 
prevent the war. The preparedness of this country as compared 
with that of Germany was far below the requirements of the modern 
war. Ten years ago Colonel Roosevelt as President was clamoring 
for six battleships per annum. Some of us pacifists (the term pacifist 
was then in less disrepute than at present) thought that two were 
enough. We deprecated having our government act as though it 
were preparing to fight Japan. I now thank God that we built 
battleships only moderately. We have far less old junk on hand 
now and our friendship with Japan has been growing year by year 
in spite of Captain Hobson and the yellow press. P'urthermore, 
ships built ten years ago would be of very little use now. Naval 
defense has been revolutionized by the present war and we do not 
know today what will be required two j^ears hence or five years 
hence. We do know that we will have to build a different type of 
ship from those demanded two or three years ago. Of the three 
hundred war vessels listed in a recent journal many are out of date; 
like automobiles warships must be of 1917, 1918 and 1919. 

Our army has been too small, everybody knew it, but in pros- 
perous times it is hard to get enlisted men. I wish to say that while 
I beheve there has been a lack of efficiency in the administration of 
the departments of war and navy, I am glad that we have thus far 
maintained the reputation of not fearing our neighbors and have 
not needed to heap up great armaments. Moreover, I believe that 
when this struggle has reached its logical conclusion we can then 
adapt a policy of greater moderation in expenditure for the enginery 
of war. 

Now that the great conflict has drawn us into its eddying cur- 
rents the whole nation must think and act in terms of war. Our 
young men must now be trained as rapidly as possible. The office, 
the factory and the university must all contribute their quota. 
Young women also will be needed as nurses and helpers. Vast 
stocks of arms, munitions and food are to be provided and trans- 



16 The Annals of the American Academy 

ported. Lessons of efficiency and economy are to be learned by all 
the people. There never was a more righteous cause for the issue 
affects the welfare and destiny of all living and of countless genera- 
tions yet unborn. God grant that when the war is over there may 
be an end of deportations, atrocities, outrages and cruelties such as 
have never blackened the pages of history. 

The great conflict is bound to disturb our economic balance. 
Some industries will be highly expanded, others will suffer. Sub- 
marine warfare is disturbing foreign trade and will no doubt bring 
enormous losses. There will be the greatest displacement of labor 
from one field to another both for men and women that the nation 
has ever seen. During the period when we were introducing labor 
saving machinery'- we saw the working out of this process. Then it 
was gradual; now it will be abrupt, dramatic and even tragic. So 
in entering the war we have to deal with problems of industry, com- 
merce and taxation such as have not vexed us before. Two great 
evils are impending. First, lavish expenditure by those suddenly 
made rich and the sudden collapse which is likely to follow the war 
when the account of the world's losses is made up. Nothing but 
some great calamity will waken the torpid minds of our people to 
the economic dangers which are wrapped up in such a world tragedy. 

Another relation is seen in the demand that the United States 
take a more active part in world politics and diplomacy. If this 
means that she is to become a military nation and help to maintain 
an armed peace, the idea is discredited by our history and ideals 
and should be resented by all loyal minds. If, however, it means 
that we are to join in a league of nations to establish international 
government founded upon justice, with equal rights for all states, 
using all sanctions such as public conscience and good-will, the 
sacredness of treaties and if necessary international police power, 
then America must play her full part. 

There seems to be another supreme reason for our action. 
While democracy kas succeeded in the western hemisphere, there is 
reason to hope that all states in the eastern hemisphere may be 
transformed and uplifted under its benign influence. China is 
awaking to a new life. Schools and colleges, many of them inspired 
and supported by Ameiicans, are models for a universal system of 
education and better material out of which to make self-governing 
citizens has never existed. Considering how many of her young 



United States and the War 17 

leaders have been educated in the United States we may well take 
pride in China's progress. Then there is Russia. There are no 
words adequate to portray the things that are in store for that 
northern empire. It is the subtle spirit of democracy working 
silently year by year until the moment arrives for the nation's 
redemption. Surely America may well rejoice in the hope that the 
onward march of freedom may not be halted until all tyranny and 
oppression are relegated to the dark abyss from which they sprang. 
Here then is the most interesting of all of our relations to the great 
conflict, namely, our attitude to nations struggling for relief from 
the oppressor. Belgium, Poland, Serbia and Armenia all need our 
sympathy and our aid. As the President stated l)efore Congress we 
have no ends to serve except those of humanity and democracy; 
but our relation to those impoverished and suffering states after 
the war should be close and salutary. America desires that all 
nations which have been deprived and defrauded of real freedom 
may in the crucible of war be refined and transmuted, and made 
fit to be members of the society of nations radiating the love of 
democracy and permanent peace. 

There are countless bonds which in the past have bound the 
world together, educational, social, economic and scientific. Amer- 
ica is involved by all these whether she will or not. As during the 
war, she has poured out her wealth to feed and clothe innocent 
sufferers and has now taken her place as an ally of those who are 
fighting for freedom, so, after the war, she must continue her minis- 
trations until hunger, pain and distress shall have vanished from 
the earth. There is also the world of thought and a^iration, of 
sympathy and of high-minded altruism. These are to be quickened 
and enhanced by the war, and afterwards it is to be expected that 
all nations will be drawn more closely together than ever before, 
and will come to hold in higher appreciation the things of the spirit 
and the great verities which give to man a high place in the kingdom 
of God. 

What can America do to aid in establishing international 
government dedicated to durable peace? That is a great question 
and one will hesitate to give a categorical answer. I trust that 
whatever we undertake will be based upon the expectation of a 
new world order. There is considerable prospect for a federation 
of democracies when universal suffrage, justice and humanity will 



IS The Annals of the American Academy 

be great words in the international conference. President Wilson 
has been disposed to state principles rather than advocate specific 
measures or remedies. The League to Enforce Peace has done a 
good work in calling the attention of the people of this and other 
countries to the possibility of a concert of nations with pacific means 
of settling all differences. The name of the league is not happy and 
undue emphasis has been placed upon force as the most important 
factor. At present the United States is joining with the Allies in 
the enforcement of war. When the war is over it is to be hoped 
that the need of force will largely cease. Democratic nations will 
not wish to look each other in the face and say we will compel you 
to do this or that. The suffering, humiliation and sorrow of the 
war will so chasten the nations that moral forces will come to the 
front as never before in history. The World Court League, which 
accepts all the proposals of the other league except one, is basing 
its hope upon the establishment of an international court and 
other subsidiary institutions, as well as upon the increased power 
of public opinion in favor of such agencies. The same public opinion 
which has caused the overthrow of autocracy in Russia and is 
threatening to undermine the Prussian tradition, will be strongly 
felt at every stage of the reconstruction period. The two leagues to 
which reference has been made and other organizations working 
for durable peace should not fail to hear the many voices in all parts 
of the world demanding that war should cease. There is good hope 
that an international executive may be developed and there must 
of course be a constabulary, or police force large enough to keep 
order and to represent the power and majesty of the united nations 
of the earth. And there will be no more suggestion of war in this 
than there is in the existence of municipal or state police. The 
United States will perform one of her greatest services to the world 
in helping to work out this beneficent plan. She may well take the 
lead in establishing a league of nations based upon justice and con- 
ciliation. 

So we may say in conclusion that the relation of America to the 
great conflict is one of understanding and appreciation. Joining in 
the war she expects to suffer, but her suffering and her losses will 
bring her into closer sympathy and fellowship with other peoples 
who in blood and in tears are battling for the welfare of mankind. 
All other relationships to the war seem less important than this. To 



Planning the Future America 19 

have a share in freeing the world of oppression and cruelty is an 
undertaking worthy of America. With malice toward none and with 
good-will to all, we may see to it that in every land the principles of 
democracy and humanity are dominant. As our President has 
pointed out: we have no ends to serve but the good of mankind, 
but, if the adventure is successful, America will have a commanding 
influence and will rejoice eternally in having done her part. 



PLANNING THE FUTURE AMERICA 

By Henry A. Wise Wood, 

New York. 

One of the chief faults of our happy-go-lucky America is its 
complete absorption in affairs of the moment. It lives wholly in the 
present, thinking little of its past and not at all of its future. 

A huge, good-humored, industrious but untrained multitude, 
it wanders contentedly along without thought of a destination. 
Having neither a consummate leader, nor a chart, nor a goal, its 
pain and its pleasure are almost the sole directors of its course. 

If things go well, it believes itself to be upon the right path; if 
they go ill, its members rush hither and thither in pained confusion 
until a more comfortable path is found, when it moves off along 
that course with no eventual objective in view. 

When the guiding force of a people is compounded of the 
thought of all of its members, that people must necessarily move and 
develop by a succession of loosely related experimental steps. A 
people must grope or be led. Democracies usually grope, with 
occasional periods during which, having fallen under the influence of 
men of foresight and strength, they are directed along preconceived 
routes towards clearly defined objectives. 

There are times when a people have become so preoccupied by 
their local affairs that they are deaf to suggestion, however beneficial, 
which calls for a change of thought and action. In such a state of 
inertia were the American people at the beginning of the present war, 
and until the aggressions of Germany grew to be intolerable. There 
are other times when a people, having been aroused out of intellectual 
lethargy into a state of acute cerebration, are mentally mobile and 



20 The Annals of the American Academy 

may easily be led into new paths, if those paths meet with their 
approbation. In such a state of intellectual fluidity are the Ameri- 
can people at the present time. 

A critical moment, therefore, in the life of the nation is at hand, 
a moment during which the nation will change its mind; during 
which it will abandon old. and embrace new purposes and choose a 
new pathway into the future. 

This then is the opportunity of the dreamer of dreams; of the 
man of vision who believes he can serve his country by pointing out 
to it the highway to a great national destiny. To such a man time 
is as nothing, obstacles are as nothing, the labor, the sweat, the 
pain of the builders are as nothing. To him the goal, the goal only, 
is reality. That end achieved, and he knows the memories of the 
struggle will grow golden and become the traditional glories of the 
nation. 

Need an American be ashamed to confess that he wishes his 
country to become the great empire of the twentieth century, 
democracy's greatest empire? That he covets for it a power great 
as was that of Rome, beneficent as is that of the British Empire, 
youthful, creative, and altruistic as is that of buoyant America? 
That he believes this end may be achieved, not by the acquisition of 
additional territory, not at the cost of his nation's friends among 
peoples, but at their gain by rendering the world such service as the 
world never has had? 

In the United States we have the largest group of educated 
members of the white race to be found anywhere in the world. They 
constitute the only great two-ocean nation and are astride the tem- 
perate zone; they are industrious, ingenious, enterprising. They 
possess an aptitude for the farm, the forest, and the mine, the 
laboratory, the factory, and the sea, and occupy a territory rich 
in every natural resource. They are peace loving and benevolent. 

What shall such a people do with their future? Shall they 
permit it to develop haphazard ; shall they advance without plan or 
direction to an unforeseen destination? Shall they not, instead, 
determine their future, make of it a carefully thought out enterprise, 
and create and organize the means necessary for its accomphshment, 
as a definite national undertaking? 

Being among those who believe tb^t the future should be tbe 



Planning the Future America 21 

result of design, not of chance, I make bold to point out what in 
some respects I beheve to be America's future place among nations. 

America has long been one of the world's greatest producers of 
foods and raw materials. This advantage we must not surrender; 
we must not permit our growing industries and increasing tendency 
towards urban life to lead us to curtail our output of natural prod- 
ucts. On the contrary, we must strive by better methods of cul- 
tivation, conservation, replenishment and working, to increase 
vastly the output of our natural substances, and to reduce their cost 
in the world's markets. 

Having at hand the necessary raw materials, a populace un- 
equalled in ingenuity, of high technical skill in the arts and easily 
taught new processes of manufacture; having a home market so vast 
that standardization becomes possible to an extent not possible 
elsewhere, and having the world's largest accumulation of free 
capital, there lacks nothing but the undertaking of the project to 
make of our country the foremost workshop of the world. 

This we may easily do if we but set our industrial house in 
order, if we but hasten to learn and apply to our needs the lessons of 
class cooperation that the warring nations are teaching us, and turn 
our government into a great industrial warder and schoolmaster. 
The industrial armies of the other peoples have been drained by the 
war, and for more than a generation will be without the vigor that 
once was theirs. We shall be required to supplement their efforts, 
and supply to their own peoples and to the other peoples who have 
depended upon them that which they no longer will be capable of 
producing. If we but grasp these, our opportunities, we shall 
become the world's foremost manufacturing nation. 

We must recover our maritime supremacy, and become the 
world's chief sea carrier. Once again must the American flag be the 
flag oftenest seen upon the waters of the earth. During the year 
1914 only 9.8 per cent of our foreign trade was carried in American 
bottoms; in 1830 it was 90.3 per cent. It is inconceivable that we 
should not instantly abandon the policies which have been making 
for our maritime suicide, and adopt others which will restore to us 
our birthright of sea use, which we have so recklessly tossed into the 
laps of other nations. The sea strength of Germany against which 
we are now so lavishly building in self-defense was largely paid for 
by ourselves. 



22 The Annals of the American Academy 

Germany's profits upon the sea carriage of our own goods and 
people have built her merchant fleets, have helped to develop her 
shipyards, and have gone far towards the creation of her only- 
second-to-Great Britain's naval power. We are now rendering a 
similar service for Japan. To carry our own exports, imports, and 
passengers, whether in the Atlantic or Pacific, must henceforth be 
our inexorable purpose. American ships for Americans and their 
goods, this must be olir slogan. 

In order to become the world's foremost manufacturers and 
merchants, we must become the world's chief bankers. Where 
foreign enterprises may borrow, there will they trade. The Ameri- 
can banker and American salesman must go abroad hand in hand. 
We must assist and encourage them as the pioneers of the new 
world-drawn industrial life into the enjoyment of which America 
is about to enter. 

The nation's surplus capital must be set to work for the nation 
wherever beyond the seas good returns in interest and trade are 
forthcoming. And selected youth must be especially trained for the 
handling of America's banking and commercial interests abroad, 
trained in the languages, manners and customs, tastes and preju- 
dices, of all foreign peoples. For this work there should be created 
a great national institution, subsidized by the government, with 
training field stations in all countries. Such an institution could 
provide us also with consuls, so that trained Americans would 
replace our untrained consuls, many of whom are of foreign citizen- 
ship and their loyalty not always to be depended upon. Thus we 
shall be made able to satisfy at our profit the needs of all nations, 
and draw an ever increasing income from the industry of other 
peoples. 

In planning the future it must not be overlooked that security 
is an essential condition of over-world trade, the security of the 
individual American and of his property. Unless the pioneers of 
American commerce be safe in life, money, and goods their enter- 
prises are but houses of straw, subject to the cupidity or passion of 
those in whose midst they are. 

Under insecure conditions American over-world trade can 
neither take firm root, nor prosper. Therefore, if we wish to create 
a great world-serving industrial democracy we must lay down and 
inexorably maintain the principle that wherever an American hap- 



Growth op Industrial Democracy 23 

pens rightfully to be there his government will insist upon the secu- 
rity of his life and property. The injury of an American upon the 
high seas or abroad must once more become the concern of all our 
people, and be resented by all our people with all their might. 

We must accept and vigorously act upon the age old saying: 
Fast bind, safe find. We now see that no nation can carry the com- 
merce of the world in one hand and an empty blunderbus in the 
other. That commerce can no more be safeguarded by treaties than 
can a treasure by a copy of the Eighth Commandment pasted upon 
the door of the vault which holds it. We now know that no one 
but the well-intentioned respects treaty or commandment; that the 
ill-intentioned respects only superior power. We therefore must 
hold superior power. We must be respected not only because of 
our intellectual and material usefulness to our neighbor nations but 
also because of our ability, our readiness, and our determination, 
everywhere and upon every occasion, to support with force if need 
be the rights even of the humblest of our people, be those rights as- 
sailed by a nation little or big. The aegis of America must protect 
the American, as did that of Rome, the Roman. Upon no other 
terms can a nation win either the respect or the trade of the world. 
We must have both. 



GROWTH OF INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 

MACHINISTS AS PEACEMAKERS 

By Arthur E. Holder, 
Legislative Representative, American Federation of Labor. 

This great national question that we are face to face with is 
one that the laboring men of the United States are meeting calmly, 
but with supreme confidence. We are neither pacifists nor jingoes, 
and we don't propose to become hysterical. We are going to do 
what we can to cooperate with our neighbors, whether they be 
capitalists or scholars, to mobilize the good-will of all our people, 
to mobilize our genius, our skill, and every variety of service we 
may be expected to render. We realize that those who come 
under the broad class of "labor," will suffer most from the human 
sacrifice. 



24 The Annals of the American Academy 

Labor, during this trouble, will even stand some imposition. 
But we will not forget. And we now furnish warning that if any 
attempt to impose is made, there will be a reaction, and labor will 
have its say when the balances are cast. 

A day or two ago, while in Bridgeport, Connecticut, I was 
reminded very forcibly of a remarkable expression given by the 
Prince of Peace wherein He said: "For what shall it profit a man, if 
he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" The reason 
this thought which He so beautifully expressed came to my mind 
was because I had personally come face to face with petty autocracy, 
which has been needlessly established in that beautiful city of 
clever artisans. I could not speak in public as an American citizen 
to my fellow American citizens without having before me, with his 
baton unsheathed, one of the police officers of that town. One 
of my friends who recently returned from Pittsburgh, Youngstown 
and Cleveland informed me that the same situation existed in those 
great industrial centers. He said it was a physical impossibility 
to hold a public meeting before shop gates, and it was becoming 
more difficult to be able to lease or rent a hall to discuss economic 
questions of a domestic nature that are absolutely foreign to the 
trouble across the water. Thus the city fathers of Bridgeport 
recently enacted an ordinance by which the great first amendment 
to the American Constitution, guaranteeing free speech, is stricken 
out and taken from the people without so much as asking "by 
your leave. " Therefore the thought has come to me most forciblj^ 
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul?" and what shall it profit us Americans, as citizens 
of the highest grade, if we undertake to fight for democracy for the 
world and then allow petty autocracy to arise in our own land and 
dictate to us what we shall do and what we shall not do? Labor 
proposes to resist to the utmost every encroachment on our common 
rights: we will maintain all the personal, inherent and constitutional 
rights for which our fathers fought. 

Let me refer to what may happen after this world war termi- 
nates. It would be a bold man to undertake to make a prophecy, 
but I have had wide experience in this world. I know something 
of human character. I have some suggestions to make and no 
better place can be afforded. First, let me drop this hint 
as to international cooperation in political matters. I have 



Growth of Industrial Democracy 25 

traveled in Europe, as a working man. I know the Europeans 
first-hand and I have found that they have no idea whatsoever of 
the pohtical organization of the United States. They have no 
proper understanding of our dual system of state and federal 
government. When once we inform them how smoothly and how 
equitably we manage our local and national affairs, it would not be 
a difficult matter to explain to the German, the Austrian, the 
Hungarian, the Frenchman, the Belgian and the Briton that they 
can have a United States of Europe if they want it, and it will 
work just as smoothly there, with all of their nationalism, as it has 
worked here in this great melting pot. Here with men of all races, 
all creeds, and many handicaps which tend to hold men back, 
we have blended into a common whole and built up this great, grand 
republic. Let us tell our European neighbors how we do things, 
and when once they know, they will learn the true meaning of those 
inspiring words ''democracy" and "efficiency." 

I have some information to convey to you with which you are, 
perhaps, not famihar. During the Sixty-fourth Congress, some 
exceptionally revolutionary industrial legislation was enacted. 
You have been busy people. You have been unable to pay strict 
attention to Congressional details. You have had to make a living 
and follow your daily pursuits, and the public press — who own 
and manipulate news service — has apparently made up its mind to 
a conspiracy of silence on real information. It has not informed 
Americans as to what was incorporated in the Army Appropriation 
Law of the last Congress. It contains a confiscatory clause invest- 
ing the President of the United States with authority to take, 
for federal use, any factory that may be needed for national use. 
The man or men who own it, if they dare to place any obstacles in 
the way, are subject to exceptional penalties! In the Naval Law of 
the last session, a commandeering clause was included, authorizing 
the President to take possession of any private plant that may be 
needed to build naval vessels or merchant ships. In that act the 
penal clauses are not as severe, but the power is there. The 
National Defense Act contains the nitrate section, No. 79. I 
hope you will all examine that particular piece of legislation and 
read carefully the most far-reaching industrial legislation ever 
enacted by Anglo-Saxons, either in the United States or the United 
Kingdom. There was much debate in the United States Senate 



26 The Annals of the American Academy 

about it because one southern gentleman feared — "it was a step 
toward socialism." And oh, how scared he was of that awful 
word; he didn't want the United States government to enter 
private business, and manufacture fertilizers for the agriculturist! 
No, indeed! He was perfectly willing that the proposed plants 
should manufacture nitrates for munitions, but he didn't want to 
interfere with private fertilizers' rights! Nevertheless, the bill 
passed over his protest. 

When committee and individual amendments were being 
considered a senator from the far west succeeded without debate, 
in getting four simple words inserted in that act. They give the 
power to the United States government in nitrate plants to manu- 
facture fertilizers for agricultural use, nitrates for munitions, 
"and other useful products." You see the significance of that? 
Why, we can now, as a people, compete with private monopolies. 
We can make shoes, manufacture furniture, steel rails, locomotives 
or refine crude oil products. We can do anything now that Uncle 
Sam wants with full legislative authority. No senator objected 
to those four powerful, all-embracing words, and they are law. 

The possibilities contained in the nitrate section will help us 
to solve some of our economic difficulties after the world war is 
over. It is really a fundamental, bed-rock proposition that will 
enable us to start a real cooperative industrial democracy which 
Mr. Lippmann has so eloquently portrayed.^ 

I want to tell you what labor suggested to the House of Rep- 
resentatives as a means of raising added revenue instead of issuing 
bonds. We recommended that the postal savings bank system 
should be extended for readier deposit by the people of the United 
States of immense sums of money. We want to mobilize those great 
financial resources that are in the pockets of millions of our people 
who have never dared to be bondholders but who would never 
hesitate at all to go to Uncle Sam's own depository in the post 
office and bank their savings. We asked that the limitation of 
deposits to a thousand dollars should be withdrawn and that 
people could freely deposit all they possess. We asked that the 
rate of interest should be increased from two per cent to three per 
cent on the grounds that, if we have to have bondholders to carry 
this debt either for this generation or for some future generation, 
1 See page 8. 



Growth of Industrial Democracy ^'f 

then all the people should be given an opportunity to cooperate 
and be the bondholders. We asked that the income tax should be 
substantially increased and graduated. We asked that the in- 
heritance tax should be materially increased, and that these two 
latter resources should be made to bear the largest proportion of 
the financial needs of the government. We also proposed what 
probably some people will feel pleased to know. We proposed 
that Congress should levy a tax on land values, not only as 
a war emergency measure, but also for a permanent means of 
raising public revenue for all time. 

I am a working man, a machinist. I must apologize for the 
lack of forethought and foresight of my trade. We are the ones 
who are really responsible for this war — our trade, the machinists — 
throughout the world. If we had been blessed with foresight, if 
we had possessed sufficient intelhgence to have seen what was 
coming, if we had cooperated and united our forces with those of 
our fellow machinists in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France and 
Russia, we could have said to kaisers, emperors, kings, princes and 
potentates, "If you want to fight, you make your own weapons; we 
machinists will not do it." 

If I five, I am going to devote the balance of my hfe to seeing 
that, when this awful struggle is over and the butchery is ended, 
there will be a delegation of trade unionists representing the 
machinists of the United States, who will visit their fellow machinists 
in the several European countries and say to them, 

Let us unite in behalf of peace and brotherhood. In the skill of our hands 
lies the destiny of the world. We can control it for peace and happiness, or for 
death and destruction. Let us put an end to machine butchery. Let us refuse to 
make weapons of war. We can if we will and for humanity's sake we will be, 
we must be, the great peacemakers in the future, so that the world shall never 
again be torn apart in the awful way that it has been during the three years, 
1914 to 1917. 



28 The Annals of the American Academy 



THE WAR IN ITS RELATION TO DEMOCRACY AND 
WORLD ORDER 

By Emily Greene Balch, 
Emergency Peace Federation, New York. 

America enters the war on grounds of the highest ideahsm, as 
the champion of democracy and world order. I will say briefly 
something as to two points: first as to democracy, and secondly, as 
to world order. But through all I have to say there will run, as a 
unifying thread, the question which confronts us all (not only now, 
but before the war and after the war and always), a question to 
which no simple answer is possible, the question of the place of 
coercion. 

I suppose we are all ready to grant, whatever our opinions, that 
coercion is a thing of which we desire to have as little as may be, 
that the quality and effect of any moral act are better, in proportion 
as they are free of the element of coercion; that economic action is 
more effective and in every way more desirable in proportion as it 
is free of all element of coercion; that political action, the action of 
the citizen, is higher in proportion as it is clear of the element of 
coercion. 

Coercion in Democracy 

How far can democracy be forced upon others or given them? 
If a people are free or democratic in their purpose and desire, but 
externally coerced, the external coercion may be removed and free- 
dom allowed to express itself, but democracy and liberty, which 
are all ideas, all states of mind, must spread by contagion or imi- 
tation or whatever you want to call this divine tendency of mind 
to kindle mind and purpose. They can neither be presented to nor 
imposed upon others. A war for democracy and liberty faces this 
limitation. 

We must remember always, in dealing with others, the pecu- 
liarities of human nature, and we can best understand human nature 
by the rule, which is as scientific as it is good, of believing that 
others are likely to act as we should act in a given situation. How 
far will a threat of outside force lead a nation to change its political 
customs and institutions, and how far will it act as a riveting and 



Democracy and World Order 29 

consolidating force upon those elements of self-will which are so 
powerful in us all? 

Must we not conclude that a country serves democracy prin- 
cipally and chiefly by being democratic, that it cannot enforce 
democracy? The same is true of liberty — liberty which is a part 
of democracy, though not all of democracy, as freedom from coercion 
is a part of liberty, though not all of liberty. 

Where, in war time, with all the strains and stresses of war 
time, should tolerance and freedom cease? A bill, let us say, is 
before Congress, approved by a committee of the Senate, disap- 
proved by a committee of the House. At what point is it illegiti- 
mate for citizens to discuss this legislation? Is it desirable in the 
interests of our country that it should be impossible to get a hall in 
which to discuss a piece of pending legislation? Is it desiralile that 
ministers of the gospel and lawyers and reputable citizens up and 
down the land should feel themselves not only exposed to moral 
and social coercion, but to actual violence, if they discuss a piece 
of pending legislation in which they are interested and which they 
believe to be contrary to the welfare of the country? 

Let us hold ourselves in control, let us be willing to have all 
points of view discussed in proper ways at proper times, with that 
freedom which is the pride and safeguard of our country, the salt in 
the dish of our national life. 

We have read much during the last three years of the dangers of 
secret diplomacy. Now, vigilance is indeed the price of liberty, 
and it is very necessary that the pubHc opinion of this country 
should intelHgently and consistently acquire a knowledge of the 
details of the government's policy. I do not mean, obviously, the 
details which it is necessary, for executive purposes, to keep secret. 
No sane person would desire to have such details made public. 
But this country is entitled to be informed (and must continuously 
demand that it be informed) of every commitment, direct or indi- 
rect, by treaty or inference or gentlemen's agreement, of anything 
binding us, anything that we cannot throw off afterwards, because 
the course of events has been allowed to commit us to it without our 
having so intended. 

Without arguing as to whether conscription is either wrong or 
unwise, I want to ask you to think it through. 

Take the case which is least favorable to the opponent of 



§0 The Annals of the American Academy 

conscription. Consider the case of a young man who is not a con- 
scientious objector in the sense of having rehgious scruples, a young 
man, let us suppose, who in the first place does not believe that this 
war is desirable for the country. There are intelligent persons and 
right-minded persons who held that view before the war and who, 
perhaps, have not changed it since. You require this young man 
not only to expose himself to the most intensive and prolonged 
suffering of which a human being is capable, endurance carried 
absolutely to the furthest limit (for endurance is, after all, a small 
part of what you ask of him), you ask of him to use his will-power, 
his intelligence, his personality unreservedly to further ends in 
which he disbelieves. 

Now, suppose, further, that this man not only believes that the 
war is useless, but that he feels, as many religious young men do feel, 
that it is the last horror to go out and deliberately inflict injury on 
one's fellowmen. I think that when we make up our minds on this, 
we ought to try to see the vision from the inside as it presents itself 
to the individual, perhaps a boy too young to make his will, too 
young to marry without his family's consent, too young to vote, 
for whom this momentous decision is made by others. 

Too often we conceive of an end of all war, of a world order, in 
a merely negative sense. We conceive of it primarily, too often, 
as a coercive league to prevent any of the partners breaking out into 
the use of violence for the achievement of an individual national 
end. Surely this is a most deformed and inadequate conception of 
the goal. Surely what we want is a free society of nations, with 
active, deliberate and interested cooperation for the great common 
ends. I do not desire so greatly a world in which we shall all, some- 
how or other, checkmate one another's desires to make war as I 
desire a world in which we stand shoulder to shoulder, all peoples 
working for those great ends which interest all people alike, and to 
which the native differences of different peoples are the greatest 
possible contribution, and which would lose by the stagnation of 
uniformity. We want the harmony of a symphony employing every 
conceivable type of instrument, not the dullness of similarity. 

The constructive genius of the race must work out such a plan 
for proposing to all nations that you could not possibly force the 
Central Powers to keep out of it. I believe that it is a perfectly 



Peace Without Force 31 

practicable thing to offer them such a new world partnership that 
they will only be too eager and glad to come in. 

There is an old fable which is always new, the story of the 
traveler and his cloak and the sun and the wind. The wind laughed 
and said, "See me take that man's cloak off," and he blew hard and 
whistled sharply, and the man wrapped his cloak about him as 
closely as he could. The sun smiled and said, "See me do it," and 
before he had done smiling the man had the cloak over his arm. 

The nations desire nothing better than to throw away their 
armies and get rid of them. They are the most burdensome cloak 
that a people has ever had. But as long as we are in a world of 
imperialisms we shall all cling to them. It is only when we enter 
upon another plane that we shall find our armies a vast and unneces- 
sary expense and a vast and hideous moral shame. 

The time is to come somehow, sometime, when the ruling type 
of our civilization will be a cooperative world order in which the 
element of coercion will be shrinking more and more and in which 
the element of free, spontaneous, joyful fellowship will be ever 
greater and greater. 



PEACE WITHOUT FORCE 

By S. N. Patten, 
University of Pennsylvania. 

The program outUned by the President in his address before 
the Senate on January 22 seems to be a break in national traditions. 
In reality, however, there has been no break, but a fulfillment. 
What Washington said, what Monroe said, what Lincoln said, is 
said again by President Wilson more clearly and more in harmony 
with the actual trend of events. The thought of the fathers should 
be perpetuated but we should not be slaves to its formal expression. 
What they wanted we want, but new conditions force us to adopt 
an attitude in harmony with the closer relations in which the world 
now stands. Berlin and London are not so far from us now as 
Charleston and Boston were from Philadelphia a century ago. If 
we needed state unity then we need world unity now to attain the 
ends for which our constitution was formed. Carried along by 



32 The Annals of the American Academy 

international forces, we have become aware of cosmic emotions but 
we dread the changes involved and fear to trust ourselves in untried 
waters. The transition has been made more difficult by the presence 
among us of false prophets who, under the pretense of an advance, 
would in reality drag us back into a preceding epoch from which we 
have fortunately emerged. Today these reactionaries are thinking 
of fighting, of coercion, of elimination, of peace with victory and 
other slogans which make the shuddering citizen thankful for the 
protection which wide seas afford. If the world is a seething tur- 
moil, the more our isolation the better. 

Beside these would-be warriors who would drag us into partisan 
struggles there is a group more modest, more peaceful and yet I 
believe a greater cause of the present confusion of thought than the 
advocates of war. The League to Enforce Peace seems an organiza- 
tion to promote harmony and doubtless this is the earnest wish of 
the promoters. But the average citizen thinks of the difficulty it 
would create. If we are to have an "enforced peace" America must 
enforce it. Who can tell what millions of men and billions of money 
will be needed to impress our standards on the world?. All conquer- 
ing races have worn themselves out in vain endeavors to enforce 
peace. Why should we try anew to do what other races have failed 
to do? Never was the world larger or more diverse than today 
and is not diversity more important than unity? 

I do not mean to argue the issues involved. At bottom I agree 
with the doubting citizen rather than with our new group of social 
philosophers. If we are to convert the world to our view I prefer 
to send missionaries rather than soldiers. If ideas cannot cement 
the world even the hugest armaments will fail. Guns may bring 
victory but they never bring peace. An armed peace is only an 
interlude between wars. Enforced law is hated law. Peace with- 
out victory abides through the spirit of brotherhood it engenders. 

The advocates of peace with victory and peace without victory 
differ in their concept of human nature and of the motives that con- 
trol men's actions. Doctrines about enforced peace take their 
rise from the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. He regarded the pas- 
sion for war as a fundamental human trait. In a natural state 
each man is at war with every other man. Security comes from the 
suppression of the natural instincts. The king, some ruling caste, 
some delegated body, must make decisions and enforce them against 



Peace Without Force 33 

the natural inclinations of the unruly masses. Peace thus means 
submission, not choice. This philosophical view is buttressed by 
the doctrine of depravity that for ages dominated the theological 
world. It is firmly held by those who believe in an aristocracy or 
a cultured class to control the discordant tendencies of the public. 
Only by hardship and discipline can the waywardness of men be 
kept under control. When these fail as a basis of coercion there 
is the theory of backward races to invite aggression and to excuse 
the dominant races when they impose their will on subject races. 
All these views are the expression of the same philosophy and carry 
with them the same need of "enforced law," Is it any wonder that 
the American people should hesitate to enter a league of enforced 
peace if the mass of the people beyond their borders have the natural 
inclinations of the savage and can be kept in subjection only by the 
impressment of superior force? It may be a very moral task to 
hold a world in subjection, but the history of many failures of 
imperialistic ventures shows that enforced peace is a waste of blood 
and treasure. Why is not isolation better than domination if the 
hearts of men are as black as has been pictured? Is it not better 
to be in a happy oasis than to be engulfed in an eternity of strife 
and brutality? 

I see no satisfactory answer to these questions except in another 
view of human nature. Is Hobbes right that war is in our souls and 
that peace comes from without or does peace dwell within us while 
war, crime and vice are externalities imposed on men by the crip- 
pling power of supermen? Are the defects that make for war in 
men or in social institutions? Only as we discover what is external 
and thus imposed and what is internal and thus self-evoking can we 
know what plan to follow when we seek to improve either men or 
the conditions under which they live. To reach a higher state we 
must alter conditions if men are naturally good. We must alter 
men if they are by heredity bad. The two alternatives have little 
in common. Our institutions and behavior must conform to one 
ideal or the other and as we decide will we seek war or peace; will 
we rely on brotherhood or force. 

It would take a book to discuss these problems but it should not 
take many pages to determine what behavior is called for by each 
plan. Either men love badness or are unwillingly bad. Govern- 
ment is cooperative good will or an inhibiting force just as war and 



34 The Annals of the American Academy 

strife, vice and crime are within or without. Either man is a brute 
vainly striving to rise or he is a rational being depressed by over- 
powering circumstances. If men are pure they need not the 
enforcement of peace but the displacement of external causes of 
conflict. Every depressing factor we remove makes a more nor- 
mal man, a better adjustment, less friction and stronger bonds of 
brotherhood. Our problem is therefore to search for the disturbing 
factors that depress and through their removal secure the peace 
which by nature men crave. War is an acquired attitude; peace 
and sympathy are the natural expression of our emotions. 

The external factors making for war come under three heads: 
repression, restriction and exploitation. The principal repressions 
are due to race, religion and language. Restrictions lie mainly in 
the sphere of economics and are designed to give some region or 
class a greater superiority of income and welfare than nature would 
give them. There is a long bitter history of these repressions and of 
the evils that flow from them. No nation or class is free from 
attempts to gain economic advantage at the expense of its neigh- 
bors nor is there any group who have not felt the force of imposed 
restrictions and resented the resulting evils. No nation is a unit of 
equal men. The few dominate at home as the more brutal dominate 
the world at large. With such a commingling of evils and misunder- 
standings is it a wonder that war becomes the expected state and 
that peace seems to be the dream of enthusiasts? 

Repression and exploitation not only take from the injured the 
objective equality on which their happiness depends, but they 
lead to psychic degeneration. The loser in position also loses in 
character. All virtues are dependent partly on objective conditions 
and fade with depressions. Even the physical traits are weakened 
or disappear. And to these we must add disease, poverty, filth and 
starvation as causes of still other abnormalities than the original 
repressions create. It is not difficult, therefore, to account for the 
race and class antagonisms nor for the abnormality and degenera- 
tion that accompany them. What the spirit wills, objective evils 
prevent. Visions of beauty are transformed into the dross of the 
street; truth keeps us counting our woes instead of seeing the firm 
basis on which progress rests. 

Our evils are not in a depraved human nature but in defective 
political institutions. The individual is protected against state 



Peace Without Force ^5 

aggression; the people against the king, but there is no protection 
of the masses against the ruling class. We think of ourselves as a 
democracy and yet our traditions keep the masses from an immediate 
control of their destinies. Should we go to war today,^ the decision 
will be made by people elected on other issues and not by popular 
assent. I find no fault with our President, but can we call ourselves 
a democracy when one man may plunge us into a war whose evils 
may weigh on us for a hundred years? If this be true of us, what 
can be said of Europe where millions of lives and billions of property 
have been sacrificed to the whim of the ruling class? No govern- 
ment asked its people if they wished to fight: nor has a single na- 
tional election occurred since the outbreak of the war to test popular 
sentiment. Not only is the war carried on without popular ap- 
proval, but the conditions of peace will be determined and the dis- 
tant future fixed before the people have an opportunity to express 
themselves. It is this distrust of democratic decisions that creates 
the barriers preventing world harmony. What evil from democracy 
could equal the failure of each ruling class to reflect the welfare of 
their own nation? We assumed an aristocracy would at least pro- 
tect the interests of property but where has a mob shown itself so 
ruthless in its destruction? We have thought that the educated 
class would prove a barrier to passion only to find that the higher 
up we go the more vigorously has the flare of emotion expressed 
itself. Passion today comes not from the street but from the news- 
paper; its readers are not the despised mob but the arrogant rich 
and the reactionary bigot. If we want peace it is not human nature 
we must alter: nor is it mob rule we should fear. It is our tradi- 
tion and antiquated class opinion that must be revised. We have 
changed the rule of the lawyer for the rule of the editor, the spoken 
word for the printed word, only to find that the passion of the reader 
exceeds that of the assembly. A demagogue as speaker can at most 
reach a few thousand hearers while an emotional editor can make a 
nation insane. 

We do not reach the heart of the situation, however, until we 
reahze that protection lies not in written constitutions and binding 
traditions but in clear ideas. We see today through yesterday's 
glasses and not in its own light. We might as well expect that the 
ideals of the Middle Ages would suflace to build a modern state as 
to assume that the ideals of the last two centuries suffice to create a 

^ This article was written prior to the declaration of war. 



36 The Annals of the American Academy 

present solution. Our great need is a self-enforcing peace — a group 
of principles that will work as successfully in world affairs as our 
constitution works in our internal affairs. We do not keep armies 
to maintain internal peace. It is not force but principle that keeps 
the Texan from destructive adventures. If he can be restrained by- 
ideals that have no objective embodiment why cannot the same 
become true of Germany or Japan? What are these self-enforcing 
principles? 

How can we build a supernational code that will be accepted as 
the moral code is accepted — a code that appeals to self-evident 
principles as does the Declaration of Independence. It will thus 
be the code of the school, the church and the press and be as un- 
questioned as is the multiplication table? The violations will thus 
become like theft or murder, the sporadic outbursts of individuals 
suffering from some abnormality. Where they happen we must 
educate, not punish. If we treat the violators of the super code 
as wronged and right the wrong before we strive to punish fewer 
violations of this code would happen than of the civil law. It is 
the failure to see how great principles would work in practice 
that creates the present confusion and thus makes for race antag- 
onisms. 

1. The first principle of a code of peace is that all decisions 
should be made by popular vote. The western world claim to be 
democratic and yet in no nation is democracy trusted. The result 
is that we have arbitrary decisions made by a class and often by a 
single person that the people are forced to carry out against their 
inclinations. Should declarations of war be delayed until ratified 
by popular vote they would not occur. Popular decisions appeal 
to human nature and it is the same the world over. It is class de- 
cisions that differ and these we must avoid by taking from every 
class its power to override popular decision. 

2. The second principle is equally important. Home rule must 
accompany popular suffrage to prevent national majorities from 
oppressing minorities. The antagonisms of race, culture, religion 
and language could thus be avoided and at the same time the 
peculiar exigencies of localities would be provided for. 

3. The third principle is the freedom of the seas. The ocean 
is a common heritage that should be in the control of no nation or 
group. This freedom must be so limited as to enable every nation 



Peace Without Force 37 

to protect its own shores. The recognized three mile Hmit will not 
enable this to be done. The controlled zone should be one hundred 
miles rather than three. Whatever the limit agreed upon, it alone 
should be the recognized area for warfare either offensive or de- 
fensive. If England extends her blockade of Germany one hundred 
miles from the German coast Germany should be allowed an equal 
area about England to establish her submarine blockade, and we 
should claim the same zone for our coast defense. But other parts 
of the ocean should be open to all on equal terms. 

4. The fourth principle is that no nation should be allowed to 
enact export taxes on raw material. The natural advantages are 
so unequally distributed that a virtual slavery can be maintained 
if some world necessity were controlled by one nation or if a group 
of nations should conspire to control world commerce. Manufac- 
tured goods do not come in this class as they can be made any- 
where with shght differences in cost. 

5. The fifth principle demands a fair distribution of tropical 
areas among commercial nations. All nations need a tropical 
region to complement their home trade. Perhaps a third of foreign 
trade will be of this class. But there is ten times the quantity of 
tropical land to meet this condition. Cuba could supply the sugar 
of the world and either Java or Brazil its coffee and spices. Nations 
now monopolize land they will never use. When land hunger ceases 
a potent cause of war will be removed. 

In regard to these canons of a super code, two questions arise. 
Would they, if adopted, suffice to uphold world peace and what 
means have we to encourage their adoption? It must be admitted 
that sporadic violations of the international code will occur just 
as lynching takes place within our country. It can, however, be 
questioned whether these violations would be of grave enough a 
character to necessitate intervention. All Americans recognize 
that lynching is a serious evil but most of them also think that the 
evils of lynching are less than the evils its suppression would impose. 
Not only would a standing army be necessary, but all our institu- 
tions would have to be altered to make such coercion possible. 
The League to Enforce Peace would find itself in the same position 
that the suppression of lynching would impose. Without it we 
should have some local disorder but with it would come a coercion 
involving far greater evils. Most disorder could be avoided by 



38 The Annals of the American Academy 

the full application of the principle of home rule. What remains 
better be ignored than suppressed. The evolution of cordial re- 
lations may be a slow process but it is the only cure of local antag- 
onism. 

The world acceptance of any view can come in one of two ways 
— progress by influence and progress by struggle. We have had 
many attempts to bring world unity by force: all of them have 
failed. America is a great nation, but it is far from that supremacy 
that would ensure world domination. Should we strive to dictate 
we merely follow the example of other world empires, waste our 
resources in useless wars and then sink to the economic impotence 
that has been the fate of nations greedy for power. No nation can 
rule, no group of dogmas fit the whole world. Peace must come 
through the recognition of difference and through the growth of the 
spirit of toleration. This means progress by influence and example 
and not by struggle. The world needs not a dictator but some 
nation that lives up to the super standard and thus shows the pos- 
sibility of a peaceful progress. Should America become such a 
people, avoiding the degradation that suspicion and hatred engender 
we would have a host of imitators. It is our misfortune if not our 
fault that we no longer hold the high position our fathers held of 
leading democratic movements. Our sympathies have overriden 
our reason. Only clear thinking can restore the lost. Fair deahng 
must replace the growing partiality that recent events have pro- 
moted. 

The war spirit is an instilled attitude due to the wrong education 
and not to the natural emotions men inherit. Recent evolution has 
changed all else but has not yet brought our national ideals in 
harmony with new conditions. In pubHc affairs we have yet a 
class rule even in the nations where democracy is nominally supreme. 
Until the middle and lower classes question the supremacy of the 
upper class our government will not be a model for world imitation. 
There is degeneration above to offset the uplift below. When this 
anomaly is removed peace, good will and cooperation will displace 
international entanglements. 

Our ancestors were aggressive, but it was the aggression of a 
spontaneous vitality. No outlets for energy were available but in 
the crude conflicts that revealed personal superiority. Today in- 
tense activity has a dozen outlets all superior to that of war. 



Peace Without Force 39 

Achievement, wealth, science and social service drain off the energies 
and furnish the satisfaction that in cruder ages only combat gave. 
The effect of war on survival has also changed. Personal strife 
left the best and removed the incompetent. Gunpowder changed 
this survival value of war. The personal combat which the sword 
favored is displaced by long range fighting in which size and vigor 
are penalized. Corresponding to this change in evolutionary 
values is a change of motive. Our forebears fought because they 
loved fighting. They glorified in aggression. Today nations war 
not for a love of fighting, but for fear of invasion. It is interesting 
that every nation in the present war regards itself on the defensive. 
The appeal is to fear and not to glory. Our wars are not therefore 
a mark of super energy but of the growth of fear motives. And 
what is fear but degeneration? 

This thought leads to the essence of our situation from a physio- 
logical viewpoint. We are all familiar with the action of toxins on 
our system, but we are less familiar with the blood content that 
increases vigor and thus makes us aggressive and dynamic. As our 
vitality increases we go out of ourselves in bolder ways and meet 
our fellows either in cooperation or conflict. Toxins in the blood 
destroy this aggressive hopefulness, replacing it with depression and 
fear. When the motive for war becomes fear instead of joyful 
aggression we may be sure its source is not with an element of nor- 
mal human nature but with a species of degeneration that affects 
particular groups. Fear is a class phenomenon, which is transform- 
ed into a national attitude by the control which class has over public 
opinion. Good vigorous blood flowing in the veins of everyone 
might bring industrial evils through the personal aggression it ex- 
cites but it would remove the degenerative fears that now over- 
power our upper class. We can thus cure war even if we cannot 
remove personal aggression. The one rests on a physical depression 
which may be avoided while the other has its seat in an imperfectly 
developed human nature. Heredity has its faults some of which 
it will be difficult to cure. But the insanity of war is not one of 
them. 

The main thought of this paper is to make clear the difference 
between two plans to secure world peace : Peace through force and 
peace without force. Peace through victory must of necessity be an 
enforced peace. The vanquished must be ruled at our expense, 



40 The Annals of the American Academy 

Peace without force means a yielding of the strong, not the sub- 
mission of the weak. Wrongs must be righted before enforcing 
claims even though these claims be just. Can we yield to a nation 
in the wrong and yet promote world justice? This is the test 
of a peace without victory, of a world not coerced by force. It is 
not the insistence on our rights but on our neighbors' wrongs that 
makes for world betterment. Nations are often unruly, emotional 
and stubborn, but they need forgiveness more than punishment. In 
local affairs we may let the majority dictate, but liberty should be 
our guide in world decisions. Toleration is more moral than right, 
more luminous than truth, a sounder principle than justice and 
more divine than retribution. Without it no democracy can exist. 
Its basis is a peace that endures because it is loved. Battleships 
and machine guns cannot do what simpler forces do through the 
radiating influence of comradeship and good will. 



PAX AMERICANA 

By George W. Kirchwey, LL.D., 
President of the ^"^iierican Peace Society. 

The League to Enforce Peace has sprung full-armed from the 
brain of Woodrow Wilson. While the immediate occasion of our 
entry into the world war is "the reckless and lawless submarine war- 
fare" which the German government has been waging against 
American commerce and the lives of our citizens, its purpose is de- 
clared by the President to be 

to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against 
selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed 
peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth in- 
sure the observance of those principles. 

And again, in the same noble utterance from which this declaration 
is taken, he says: 

We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts 
— for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in 
their own government, for the rights and hberties of small nations, for a universal 
dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety 
to all nations and make the world itself at last free. 



Pax Americana 41 

Now it would be a mistake to interpret these declarations and, 
with them, all the other notable utterances of the address to the Con- 
gress, in a literal sense. The President is in expression distinctly a 
man of letters, and, as Matthew Arnold says of the Bible, "to under- 
stand that the language" employed "is fluid, passing and literary, 
not rigid, fixed and scientific, is the first step toward a right under- 
standing." But it would be a greater mistake to dismiss the whole 
matter as "mere literature" and to assume that the war to which 
we were committed on the evening of April 2 has any but a historical 
connection with the defensive program launched on March 4. To 
say, as we well may, that the one is the germ of the other, does not 
limit the war that is, either in scope or purpose, to the war contem- 
plated a month earher. It is clear that the President's purpose en- 
larged portentously in the few weeks that intervened between the 
two events — not as the result of external happenings (there had been 
no new "overt act" of special significance; the German submarine 
warfare was neither better nor worse than it had been) but as the 
result of a new orientation of the President's mind. During that 
fateful month the long roll of wrongs suffered by us and by other 
neutral powers presented themselves no longer as individual acts of 
aggression, reluctantly committed under the lash of necessity, but 
as the unfolding of the hostile purpose of an autocratic military 
power waging "warfare against mankind." "Peace without vic- 
tory" is now seen to be impossible. Our country must "exert all 
its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of 
the German empire to terms and end the war." 

To what extent this growing purpose of the President has been 
shared by the American people, it would be vain to inquire. It had 
long been held by a small but influential section of the communitj'-, 
the majority of the "intellectuals," the professional classes and the 
leading newspapers. The great mass of the population, indifferent 
or reluctant from the beginning, has probably remained unconvinced 
to the end. But the end has come and it is safe to assume that the 
President's purpose is today the nation's purpose and that we are in 
the war not merely to protect our commerce and the lives of our 
citizens, but also to end the war which the German government is 
waging on mankind and, by cooperation with the governments now 
at war with Germany, to bring that government to terms. 

In saying this I am not unmindful of the fact that the Congress, 



4^ The Annals of the American Academy 

clearly representing the weight of public opinion of the country at 
large, has;accepted, not willed, the war, and that only a small minor- 
ity of either House put the seal of its approval on the wider purpose 
declared by the President. A considerable number of the members 
who voted for war emphatically repudiated any motive but that of 
vindicating American right against German aggression and a large 
majority gave this as their only reason for so voting. But when the 
war-making power has once been placed in the President's hands it 
is certain that its course will be determined by his purpose and not 
by the reserves and hesitations of those who entrusted it to him. 
Indeed, as every reader of history knows, wars have a way of taking 
their own course without much respect for the intentions of those 
who set them in motion. If there is anyone, in or out of Congress, 
who still believes that Germany's submarine warfare is today the 
vital issue between the two countries and that the Imperial govern- 
ment could still by abandoning that warfare make peace with the 
United States, the course of events in Washington during the past 
two weeks^ should undeceive him. We are not waging a separate 
warfare against Germany. Whether, as a people, we willed it or 
not, we are in the war and we are in it to the end. The only peace 
that we can now consider is a general peace that will make the world 
safe for democracy. For better or for worse, Woodrow Wilson has 
given the United States a new world policy. 

If I am correct in this interpretation of the situation, two facts 
of momentous significance in their bearing on our national life and 
well-being as well as upon the future course of world-history come 
into view. The first is tliis : that for the first time in human history 
a great nation has gone to war, has pledged all its power and re- 
sources, has staked its very existence for a purely ideal end. As the 
President has truly said, "We have no selfish ends to serve. We 
desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for our- 
selves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely 
make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. 
We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as 
the faith and the freedom of the nation can make them." I say 
this is an unprecedented event, and for that reason bound to be mis- 
understood. We may well beheve that the German government 
was taken by surprise, when her inspired organs cry out, "Never 
before has a nation gone to war without cause or for such a cause." 
1 Written in April, 1917. 



Pax Americana 43 

In the second place, our entry into the war "for such a cause" 
marks the abandonment of our traditional and cherished poHcy of 
isolation and independence of world pohtics. Not at the close of 
the Civil War, not as the result of the Spanish War, but today has 
the United States become a part of the international system. No 
American will undervalue the advantages which that policy of proud 
isolation has conferred on humanitj^, or will see it pass wholly with- 
out regret. It has given security from foreign aggression to half a 
world. It has quarantined us against the fatal disease of militarism. 
It has made possible the growth to plenitude of power and prosperity 
of the greatest and most pacific democracy that the world has ever 
seen and has thus fitted it for the greater role which it has now as- 
sumed. But it has been a selfish policy, not less selfish — if less mis- 
chievous and hateful — than the predatory policy of the powers from 
whom it has kept us aloof. It has given us peace, but it has been 
the peace of Cain — "Am I my brother's keeper?" We have kept 
out of war ourselves, but we have done nothing to keep other nations 
out of war. We have generally observed justice in our dealings with 
other nations, but we have been unperturbed and undismayed by 
the spectacle of injustice under which other peoples have been made 
to suffer. We have kept ourselves free from entangling alliances, 
but we have made no effort to substitute for the fatal balance of 
power in Europe and the Orient a true concert of nations based on 
mutual respect, forbearance and good-will. In those fatal days 
when Europe was hastening to her doom, when Belgium was meet- 
ing her unmerited fate, we raised neither hand nor voice to stay the 
outrage. Alike in our commercial and in our foreign policy, we have 
claimed the advantages, while repudiating the responsibilities, of the 
cooperative commonwealth of the nations. Worst of all, this policy 
of aloofness has bred in us a certain complacency and unadven- 
turousness which has led us to conceive of international peace as a 
negative, static condition, a kind of Nirvana, to be attained by fold- 
ing the hands over the navel and keeping the eyes closed in contem- 
plation, rather than as a high constructive policy to be achieved in 
danger by infinite effort and sacrifice. 

At this point grave questions, sharp as the spear of Ithuricl, 
thrust themselves upon us. Is the issue between autocracj^ and 
democracy, between civilization and barbarism so clear in the pres- 
ent struggle that we could not refuse to take up the gage of battle? 



44 The Annals of the American Academy 

Is war the only way, is it the best way, for our great, pacific democ- 
racy to champion the imperilled rights of mankind and strive for a 
better world order? On these questions, on which the sentiment of 
our people is so passionately divided, I express no opinion. They 
belong to a past which is already beginning to seem remote, and can- 
not be heard in the House of the Interpreter. But the Interpreter 
may surely be heard to say that if war is ever justifiable it is doubly 
justified when waged not for selfish ends but for the common weal, 
and that it is unworthy of a great people to withdraw itself in monk- 
ish isolation from a wretched world struggling in the twihght of the 
gods toward order, peace and justice. There is something that tells 
us that, for nations as for individuals, when great issues are at stake, 
it is better to live dangerously yet fearlessly than to live safely ; that 
in a world in which lawless violence is rewarded with power, "Right 
forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne," it is shameful 
to avoid the struggle and live at ease. 

Thus far our commitment is only for the present war. The 
President, indeed, makes us partners in a ''League of Honor," and 
declares that we shall fight "for a universal dominion of right by 
such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all 
nations and make the world itself at last free." But may we not 
say that this is the language of aspiration, not a definite, political 
program to which we are asked to commit ourselves? What it points 
to is not a formal League of Nations pledged to maintain peace 
among themselves, such as is outlined in the Bryce plan in England 
or in the program of our own League to Enforce Peace, but "a part- 
nership of opinion," "a concert of purpose and of action amongst 
the really free and self-governed peoples of the world. " In so far as 
the purpose here adumbrated transcends the issues of the present 
war, it seems to call rather for a spiritual partnership of the demo- 
cratic peoples than a league of democratic powers committed to joint 
action against an aggressor. To such a "league of honor " we should 
be glad to commit ourselves even though it should in some fateful 
hour again offer us the dreadful choice of war to vindicate the prin- 
ciples of peace and justice against selfish and autocratic power. 
Further than this we are not likely to go until true democracy rules 
the nations from the Baltic to the Golden Horn. 

Limiting our view, then, to the present war and its issues, what 



Pax Americana 45 

is the service that the high and disinterested purpose which we have 
avowed demands of us? 

It requires, in the first place, that we shall wage the war nobly, 
generously and without bitterness. As the President has said, "We 
act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the de- 
sire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them." As we are 
without fear, we can afford to leave the foul and corroding passion 
of hate to "the lesser breeds without the law" or to those who fight 
blindly and madly for national existence. 

In the second place, as we fight only for the security of the na- 
tions against lawless aggression, our fight will be over as soon as that 
security has been attained, whether by crushing victory or by the 
voluntary submission of the enemy. We have not gone to war to 
serve the purposes of the Allies save in so far as those purposes are 
ours. It would be a kind of madness as well as a betrayal of our 
democracy for our government to become a full partner of the En- 
tente Allies and bind itself not to make a separate peace. There is 
no danger that the President will propose or that the Senate would 
ratify such an arrangement. 

In the third place, our government should not only withdraw 
from the war but should use all its influence to bring the war to a 
conclusion as soon as, in its opinion, a just and durable peace can be 
secured. We are fighting for a world-peace, not for a world-truce, 
and we cannot lend ourselves to terms of settlement which, because 
of their harsh or oppressive character, will have in them the seeds of 
future wars. It is clear that our purpose to bring peace and security' 
to the world will not be achieved until Belgium, France and Serbia 
have been completely emancipated from foreign dominion and re- 
stored to the condition in which they w^ere before the storm of war 
was let loose on them, but is anyone bold enough to assert that we 
should fight for the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, or to es- 
tablish the Russians in Constantinople, or to place Albania under 
the heel of Italy, or to force a democratic regime on the Central 
Empires? It is not thus that the incubus of autocratic militarism 
that now rests upon the world can be destroyed. 

In the fourth place, we should insist now, as the price of our 
active participation in the general w^ar, that the Allies shall bind 
themselves to join with us in the creation of a true society of nations, 
from which no power, small or great, whether now friendly or hostile, 



46 The Annals of the American Academy 

shall be excluded, and which shall be based on the general accept- 
ance of the "Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations" 
adopted by the American Institute of International Law, January 
6, 1916, and of the principles of peaceful adjustment and judicial 
settlement of international disputes, as set forth in the ''Recom- 
mendations of Havana," adopted by the same body of international 
jurists, January 22, 1917. What may well be regarded as a mini- 
mum program on which we shall insist is: 

1. The convocation of a third Hague Conference immediately after the close 
of the war — the conference to assume a permanent character, meeting at regular, 
stated periods, under general regulations having the force of international law. 

2. The formation of a judicial union of the nations by a convention pledging 
the good faith of each of them to submit their justiciable disputes to a permanent 
court of the union and to submit to the findings of such court. 

3. The creation of an international council of conciliation to which the nations 
shall bind themselves to submit such questions of a non-justiciable character as 
may not have been settled by negotiation. 

Whether the nations shall go further and establish a League to 
Enforce Peace by military power either among themselves or against 
the insolent pretensions of aggressive powers not of their number, 
must, I conceive, be left to the future to determine. Personally I 
do not believe that the world is yet ripe for such a consummation. 

And, lastly, we must wage the war for democracy and the se- 
curity of peace and justice at home as well as abroad. For the 
enemy, the selfish spirit of autocracy that lives by force and aggres- 
sion is here in our midst as well as in Berlin, Vienna and Constan- 
tinople. As Galsworthy has recently reminded us, "The Prussian 
junker is but a specially favored variety of a well-marked type that 
grows in every land. And the business of other men is to keep cir- 
cumstances from being favorable to its development and ascend- 
ancy." But this statement, true as it is, is not the full measure of 
the danger that menaces our democracy. A latent junker sleeps in 
most of us, and war is the congenial climate in which he thrives and, 
in an evil hour, takes command over the better, the more humane 
and reasonable, the more democratic part of us. We enter upon the 
war with the loftiest aims that ever inspired a nation in arms. The 
spirit of nationalism which makes us a united people and therefore 
capable both of feeling deeply and of realizing nobly those aims, is 
at the same time the opportunity of the autocrat, the jingo, of all 



Pax Americana 47 

those incapable of fighting for an ideal loftier than self-interest or 
national power or the glory of conquest. It is against these in our 
own land, in our own blood — that we must strive in order that we 
may preserve and bring to prevail America's unique contribution to 
the welfare of the world. 

And here we reach the height of the great argument. I have 
spoken of the high spirit of disinterestedness that has carried us into 
the war. But that should not surprise us nor anyone, friend or 
enemy, that knows us. As a recent writer has said: 

The truth is that the United States is the only high-minded Power left in the 
world. It is the only strong nation that has not entered on a career of imperial 
conquest, and does not want to enter on it. If the nations of Europe had enter- 
tained purposes as disinterested as those of the United States they would not now 
be engaged in this butchery. There is in America little of that spirit of selfish 
aggression which Ues at the heart of militarism. Here alone exists a broad basis 
for "a new passionate sense of brotherhood, and a new scale of human values." 
We have a deep abhorrence of war for war's sake; we are not enamored of glamour 
or glory. We have a strong faith in the principle of self-government. We do not 
care to dominate alien peoples, white or colored; we do not aspire to be the Ro- 
mans of tomorrow or the "masters of the world." The idealism of Americans 
centers in tlie future of America, wherein we hope to work out those principles of 
liberty and democracy to which we are committed This poUtical ideal- 
ism, this strain of pacifism, this abstinenceYrom aggression and desire to be left alone 
to work out our own destiny, has been manifest from the birth of the repubUc. We 
have not always followed our light, but we have never been utterly faithless to it.i 

When such a people goes to war the act presents itself either as 
a great betrayal or as a sublime fulfilment, and the nations today and 
history tomorrow — not by our words but by our deeds — will judge us. 
What will be required of us is not victory — though for victory we 
must mightily strive — but fidelity to the principles that have made us 
a name among peoples. Victory achieved through the defeat of those 
principles will itself be defeat, however great the material triumph. 

Shall we be able to keep our ideals unimpaired in this new old- 
world — this world of storm and stress, of militant wrong and tri- 
umphant-power — in which we have now elected to play our part? 
To make war only when we must and then not for selfish ends but 
only for the common weal? To keep and strengthen justice and 
democracy at home even while we strive for democracy and justice 
abroad? To dream no dream of empire, to see no alluring vision of 
1 Roland Hugins, The Possible Peace, New York, 191G. 



48 The Annals of the American Academy 

power but the vision of a world made safe for democracy and secured 
against outrage by the united will of enfranchised peoples? I do 
not know. But this I know, that the days of our cloistered virtue 
are well lost and that we cannot refuse the great adventure even 
though we gain the whole world and lose our own soul. And this, 
too, I know, that the greatest disaster that could befall mankind is 
not the sum of human misery which such a war as this brings in its 
train, nor yet the shameful legacy of hate and fear and mistrust that 
it leaves behind it, but the loss to humanity of those ideals of democ- 
racy, justice and peace which our Republic has represented in an 
evil world. And this, too, I know, that it rests wholly with us to 
keep our democracy true to the line marked out for it in Washing- 
ton's farewell address: 

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations; cultivate peace and har- 
mony with all It will be worthy of a free, enlightened and, at no dis- 
tant period, a great nation, to give to manldnd the magnanimous and too novel 
example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. 



THE INTERNATIONAL RIGHT AMERICA MUST 
CHAMPION 

By Roland G. Usher, Ph.D., 

Professor of History, Washington University, St. Louis. 

The question of America's obligation to defend international 
right raises no less significant an issue than the cause of the war 
between the United States and Germany and its justifiability. It 
is a question either of the utmost simplicity or one of almost in- 
soluble complexity, a subject upon which a difference of opinion is 
hardly conceivable or one upon which agreement becomes almost 
improbable. While I do not labor under the delusion that many 
people believe this question to be simple, I know that many people 
do regard it as relatively easy to decide and that they reach a de- 
cision in the hght of what I believe to be prejudgments, precon- 
ceptions, and even prejudices. Our chief obligation in the study 
of international right and of the measures necessary to be taken by 
the United States in its defense is to study it from the point of view 
of American interests. 

Our conclusion, indeed, will be no better than our premises are 
valid. If the vital element in our supposed judgment be a pro- 
found dislike for Germany, an unspoken and unconscious attach- 
ment for France, horror over the invasion of Belgium or the sinking 
of the Lusitania, we shall project into the issue of international 
right the question of the right and wrong of the war itself, of the 
validity of Pan-Germanism, of Schrechlichkeit. Immediate and pos- 
itive conclusions we shall produce but conclusions not to be confused 
with logic, evidence and history. With such impulses, the immense 
majority in this country seem to me to approach the question 
of America's obligation to defend international right, and upon such 
grounds they affirm or deny the justifiabihty of our entrance into 
the war. America's obligation to beat Germany, America's obliga- 
tion to express horror for Belgium and the Lusiiania, America's 
obhgation to preserve a technical neutrality by exporting no more 
munitions, America's obligation to compel England as well as 
Germany to observe international law — none of these proceeds from 

49 



50 The Annals of the American Academy 

a real investigation of America's obligation as the defender of inter- 
national right. Each and all assume the conclusion as the premise. 
They prejudge the issue on the basis of other circumstances than 
those of law, history and diplomacy. I trust that I shall escape 
the designation of pro-German as the result of these statements. 
I once wrote a book not too well liked in Germany and have 
advocated constantly cooperation between the United States and 
Great Britain, which I hope is already a reality, but I have sought 
always to advance definite reasons based upon a study of American 
history, American democracy and American economic interests. 
We must see the war in the light of American interests, not define 
American interests in terms of the European struggle, if we afe to 
understand the true significance of our entry into the conflict. 

From another point of view a large body of well-intentioned, but 
I am afraid zealously misdirected people, prejudge the issue. Theo- 
retically the internationalist is a cosmopolite, a citizen of the world 
at large. In his vocabulary there is no such word as patriotism; for 
him nationality has no meaning; he is the true man without a 
country. I will yield to no man in the firmness of my conviction of 
the blessings of peace and of the horrors of war; I beheve strongly 
that international organization is desirable and that international 
tribunals and courts can achieve at present valuable results, but I 
am not yet ready to place peace before patriotism, nor an interna- 
tional court before my devotion to the creed of Washington and of 
Lincoln, to those intangible impulses which beat within me at the 
sight of our flag on the docks at Liverpool in August, 1914. Amer- 
ica's obligation must be couched for me in terms of patriotism or it 
has for me no meaning, no obligation. We must attain interna- 
tionalism and peace through patriotism and nationality and not at 
their expense. 

The question, indeed, of America's obligation as the defender of 
international right is to me less one of evidence than of logic, less 
one of immutable facts than of principles. What we mean by in- 
ternational right depends upon our conception of international law 
which itself must be the logical result of our conception of the in- 
ternational world. That in turn involves our notion of sovereignty 
and dependency, which can themselves be made concrete and prac- 
tical only by discoverable tests whereby the reality of sovereignty^ 
may be ascertained in particular cases. Our notion of obHgation 



America and International Right 51 

necessarily depends upon our conception of ethics, of morality, of 
crowd psychology, upon our opinions regarding the justifiability of 
war, the necessity of peace, and the character of international or- 
ganization needed to achieve it. Nor shall we reach any under- 
standable conclusion without delving deep into the relation between 
individualist ethics and the ethics of nations, without in some way 
defining ethics itself and its relation to history, diplomacy and law. 
This question is no hard and fast legal abstraction consisting merely 
of the application of admitted legal premises to a definite ascer- 
tainable set of facts, but an issue whose terms are as yet vehemently 
discussed and which is itself partly historical, partly diplomatic, 
partly juristic, partly ethical; an issue as broad as the field of 
human learning, as deep as the past of the race, as significant as its 
future. 

The true difficulty of the question seems to lie in the disagree- 
ment of statesmen, diplomats, historians and lawyers in different 
nations, and in the same nation, upon the facts which underlie the 
situation and upon the meaning and validity of its most fundamental 
postulates. Diplomatists and statesmen on the one hand and in- 
ternational lawyers and textbook writers on the other disagree 
widely upon no less significant and basic conceptions than the 
character, nature and scope of international law. The former deny 
that in a proper sense of the words there is any such thing. The 
latter more vehemently affirm its existence. The definite precepts 
of such a law natin-ally emerge from the hands of the two schools in 
very different condition, while the interpretation and application of 
the few precepts apparently acceptable to both have caused wide 
divergence of opinion. 

The great powers of Europe apparently admit the existence of a 
certain international code in theory, but seem to proceed in practice 
upon a widely different code. International rights are in controversy 
between the belligerents themselves, and neutrals are not entirely 
agreed as to what they are. Belligerents disagree with neutrals; 
some with all neutrals, others with most. Great Britain and France, 
our new Allies, to say nothing of Germany, dissent from basic prop- 
ositions upheld by the United States and declare their version to be 
demonstrable by our own diplomatic practice and from the decision 
of our own admiralty courts. The controversy, indeed, ranges 
over so wide a field and the points controverted are so exceedingly 



52 The Annals of the American Academy 

fundamental and the controversy about them is so very general 
as to demonstrate beyond all peradventure the fact that, if there 
is any truth about this subject, men are not agreed as to what it is. 
The controversialists not unnaturally take widely different views 
of history and of diplomacy. The American interpretation of rights 
on the high seas which the President has championed rests quite obvi- 
ously upon the assumption that the seas were free in time of peace and 
were free in time of war until the German submarine warfare closed 
them. The Germans retort that this is the English view, that the 
freedom of the seas is a fiction and neither exists nor has existed in 
time of peace nor at any other time. Merely because the British 
have seen fit to allow most nations to use the seas with considerable 
freedom does not in the least demonstrate that those nations possess 
privileges guaranteed by international law. They receive them from 
Great Britain and do not retain them longer than Great Britain is 
willing to concede them. The facts of the war prove to the Ger- 
mans that the British themselves closed the seas, that their action 
was unwarrantable, and that the Germans are protesting against it 
as much in our interest as in their own. It will be obvious that the 
question of fact whether or not the seas were free at any time is vital 
to a decision as to their present condition and the responsibility of 
Germany in regard to it, and to the obligation of the United States 
as a defender of international right. The issue here is not one of law 
but one of history and comprehends not merely the history of the 
last three years but of the last three centuries. 

But we shall be blind if we deny that what men believe to be 
facts is as potent as the truth itself in governing men's actions. The 
popular attitude and decision upon these great issues is one of vital 
consequence which must not be forgotten in an inquiry of this sort. 
Part of our task is to learn whether or not the popular decision pro- 
ceeds from sentiment, prejudice, preconception, or self-interest. 
We must seek to understand it because it may not be within our 
power to control it. It seems to be true that the popular mind in 
the United States accepts practically without hesitation or reserva- 
tion the international law espoused by the more radical theorists as 
a law of superior obligation which no nation may break without in- 
curring a penalty which the nation injured has a right to exact and 
which is expressly sanctioned by the law itself. While sovereignty is 
in the popular mind a vague conception, there is no real hesitancy 



America and International Right 53 

in admitting that Great Britain, Turkey and Denmark are all 
sovereign nations, all equally sovereign, entitled to equal rights under 
the international code. There is again a general feeUng that the 
defense of weak and small nations must be led by the United States 
at all costs, because we are better situated to defend the integrity of 
international law than are the nations of Europe. Of our power to 
achieve something of moment if we choose, the popular mind has not 
the slightest doubt. It thinks of the United States today apparently 
as the world's money power and, therefore, indispensable and all 
important, as the world's chief industrial nation, as the world's 
richest nation. Our invulnerabihty, our military prowess, our 
naval power, the pubhc accepts as beyond dispute. 

This view of the situation does not seem to me sustained by the 
more conservative and accurate study of history, diplomacy and 
jurisprudence, if the men whose reputations as scholars were great 
before the war broke out are to be depended upon as authorities. 
It seems to me further to be widely at variance with what the great 
powers of Europe find practicable to observe or possible to concede. 
These seem to consider the international community to be composed, 
not of some fifty odd nations, but of the six European powers and 
Japan, who are not themselves sovereign but very nearly so. The 
other so called nations are either actually sovereign like the United 
States and the South American countries, but not integral parts of 
the international fabric, or they are semi-dependent and dependent 
nations which are ruled by the great powers in conference. Interna- 
tional law as observed and practiced consists of the privileges which 
the six European powers mutually extend each other and of the 
obligations which they recognize as binding between themselves, 
and, in addition, of all such privileges and immunities as they 
voluntarily extend the other nations and of the practices and con- 
cessions which they exact from them. It is above all a voluntary 
code, exceedingly flexible, brief, practical, and not in the least re- 
garded as a law of superior obligation so far as the six powers are 
concerned. It is obhgatory definitely enough upon the semi-depend- 
ent and dependent states. 

This international system furthermore is primarily a law of 
peace in the sense of a law binding so long as the six powers are at 
peace with each other. A war between them suspends its operation 
and brings into prominence a very different set of privileges and obli- 



54 The Annals of the American Academy 

gations, much more elastic, much less charitable. The great powers 
definitely maintain that the circumstances of war do alter interna- 
tional relationships, obligations, duties, rights and privileges for all 
members of the international community, whether belhgerents or 
not. The practical basis of this conception lies in the difficulty and 
practical impossibility of assuring each other in time of war the 
courtesies and concessions common during peace, and of insuring 
neutral nations in practice the privileges which the powers are en- 
tirely willing to yield them in time of peace. Privileges in interna- 
tional law are treated by the great powers at all times not as ques- 
tions of right or of law but as questions of feasibility and expediency. 

We must as scholars be clear upon the point that if we have 
gone to war with Germany to achieve recognition of certain tech- 
nical rights at sea, of certain technical rules about visit and search, 
to obtain certain guarantees for the protection of American lives on 
the high seas, or even to maintain a certain view of international 
law which has continually found expression in our diplomatic papers, 
we have gone to the assistance of powers who decline quite as firmly 
as Germany to accept these general principles and their specific 
application to their own relations with the United States. We shall 
be apparently accepting the system itself and be losing what we 
are fighting to win. Let us as scholars again acknowledge what 
most European diplomats believe to be true. 

The result of this system is to define America's rights and Amer- 
ica's obligations in the terms of European interests, and to place the 
decision in the hands of the six European powers acting in concert. 
We have in practice enjoyed such privileges as they have voluntarily 
yielded us. We have, with objections more or less violent and with 
protestations more or less loud, been compelled to accept their 
version of our obligations toward them. Some points they have not 
felt it worth while to insist upon, others they have demanded and 
secured. Some concessions we have felt worth war, but we have 
usually failed to make our point. Nevertheless in time of peace 
we have had little to complain of. They have sought to be mag- 
nanimous; they have even succeeded in being generous. The 
Monroe Doctrine they have never explicitly challenged and its 
general spirit they have voluntarily observed, though we have 
never at any time been in a position to compel its observance. 
Specific rights at sea, such as are at present in question, we have 



America and International Right 55 

commonly enjoyed though we have never been in a position to 
exact them. Our specific difficulties are merely the concrete evi- 
dence of the fact that we are not represented effectively in the 
councils in which the real decisions are made and that we are not 
yet sufficiently indispensable as an economic factor of the world, 
not even with all the changes the war has produced, to make con- 
cessions vital to us vital for them to grant. 

If we entered the war against Germany purely on technical 
grounds, we have stultified ourselves. But we did nothing of the 
kind. We entered the war to change the system itself which has 
produced the technicaHties and disabilities from which we have 
suffered. We have entered the war against the power which 
proposes to continue the old order, the old logic, the old ethics and 
the old diplomacy, and we have joined hands with those powers who 
have striven in arms for three years to create a new international 
order based not upon autocracy but upon democracy, upon the rule 
of armies and of diplomats by the people instead of by kings. We 
have entered the war in a fight for principles not for technicalities 
or details. 

The international right America must champion is the right 
to be consulted, the right to be considered in deciding the basic and 
fundamental elements in the international problem, the right to in- 
sist that the international horizon shall be so broadened as to in- 
clude not only the affairs of Europe but those of America, Africa and 
Asia. We are insisting that the definition of international right shall 
be international in scope and international in purpose; that it shall 
attempt to advance the interests of all nations so far as is mutually 
advantageous. It will define international interests in general in 
terms not exclusively European, nor governed by considerations 
based upon the European balance of power and the exigencies of 
European national policies. The principle itself is the vital thing; 
that the United States is a necessary element of the international 
community to be consulted in all affairs of significance. This fact 
we must maintain and this fact we must defend. 

The immediate obligation of the United States then is to achieve 
something practical, effective, immediate toward securing some 
admission by the great powers that the affairs of the world will no 
longer be decided primarily on the basis of European politics. But 
we shall be entirely unwise to insist upon the recognition of this 



56 The Annals of the American Academy 

principle in any particular way or upon the formation of any partic- 
ular type of new international organization to replace the old. To 
achieve the theoretical end at least of the present system, to un- 
mask it and show it in all the nakedness of its fictitious international- 
ism will be an achievement of extraordinary moment. With that, at 
present, the United States may well rest satisfied. To insist that 
the six great powers shall abdicate in some formal way is to demand 
that they humiliate themselves, recognize publicly that they have 
been living in sin; pubhcly impose a stain upon their honor. To 
expect again to secure the recognition by the great powers of the 
equality of all the apparently independent states of the present 
world is to ask a change so sweeping that it has no chance of ac- 
ceptance, to sacrifice a great scheme by attaching impossible con- 
ditions. What kind of an international council is created after the 
war, what type of court, how much of the theorists' code of interna- 
tional law will be conceded to be of practical application, are all 
matters of relative indifference. We should be more than satisfied 
with the explicit pledge of a new order given by the British Premier 
at the American luncheon in London on April 12, 1917. 

I also say that I can see more in the knowledge that America is going to win a 
right to be at the conference table when the terms of peace are discussed. That 
conference will settle the destiny of nations and the course of human life for God 
knows how many ages. It would have been a tragedy, a tragedy for mankind, 
if America had not been there and there with all her influence and her power .^ 

But it is essential that the foundations of the new order should 
be laid in democracy and the rule of the people, in humanity, justice 
and right, as those great words have been understood by centuries 
of Christians. For the cause of the German people there is much to 
be said; their difficulties and troubles during the regime of the old 
diplomacy were certainly many and grievous. But the United 
States cannot admit that the international balance can today be 
adjusted by the continuation of the old disregard of morality and of 
law or accept the dictum that patriotism justifies brutal and in- 
human acts and policies. A certain clearing of the ground upon 
which the new order is to be built has become essential. Autocracy, 
secret diplomacy, Schrecklichkeit, cumber the new site and must be 
removed. To assist in that task we are now pledged that the work of 
America in the defense of international right may be effective and 

1 Lloyd George, April 12, 1917. 



America and International Right 57 

permanent. For the future, for our posterity, for that greater 
majority of Americans yet to be born, scarcely any work could be 
more essential, more glorious. 

But the only effective guarantee of a new order will be the 
prompt, efficient, decisive participation of the United States in the 
world conflict. We are now to demonstrate our equality, to prove 
our title to consideration as a sovereign among sovereigns. In- 
ternational status, as the great powers have observed it, has de- 
pended primarily on the ability of a nation to cast a decisive in- 
fluence into the international scale. That we would some day be 
capable of f ar-reacliing influence was appreciated in 1823 ; but that 
the new world is now able to redress the balance of the old has not 
yet been conceded in Europe. In Germany they sneer and dare us 
to do our worst, confident in the tradition of our unpreparedness, 
isolation, impotence; in Great Britain and France, they believe and 
trust and hope but with the fear that perhaps as yet we may not be 
able to demonstrate that we are capable of that type of sustained or- 
ganized effort expected of first-class powers. Upon our decisive 
influence, upon the war itself depends our international status in the 
immediate future; upon the demonstration of our equality of status 
depends the creation of a new international order truly international 
and non-European, for the new state must contain at least one non- 
European power whose efficiency and power is beyond dispute equal 
to that of any of the older powers — the United States must achieve 
that the new internationaUsm may be reaHzed. 

What then becomes the bounden duty of the United States in 
the defense of international right? The prompt and successful 
prosecution of the war, efficient and decisive aid to the Allies, 
achieved by a great army based upon universal service, by a new 
merchant marine of small wooden ships, by an extension of the 
munitions industry, by the mobilization of our agricultural and 
industrial resources. America's defense of international right is no 
longer an academic question of law, history and diplomacy. The 
days of the diplomat are past, the day of the soldier, of the sailor, 
of the skilled machinist, of the farmer has come. We have followed 
the counsel of Washington. We have raised a standard to which 
the wise and honest can repair. 



58 The Annals of the American Academy 



NEUTRAL RIGHTS UPON THE SEAS 

By Feederic R. Coudert, 
New York. 

Mankind is ever prone to be the victim of phrases, and as the 
march of democracy progresses and the rule of the newspaper is 
substituted in the non-Teutonic world for the rule of the sword, 
men ever grow more susceptible to word formulas. 

Since the beginning of this war much has been said about the 
"Freedom of the Seas." No one has defined the term with pre- 
cision and nearly everybody seems to have been content to discuss 
it without a definition. It is not a technical phrase. It has never 
been defined either in law or in politics, and like all phrases relating 
to freedom, the latitude of interpretation is a wide one. It appears 
to have conjured up different images at different epochs. When 
Grotius wrote Mare Liberum the freedom which he contemplated 
was the freedom from the dominion of the Portuguese who claimed 
to exercise sovereignty over great portions of the ocean. The 
Portuguese claim died a natural death with the evanescence of 
Portuguese power. The declaration of Alexander VI dividing the 
world between Spain and Portugal now seems grotesque, but had 
its value in lessening conflicts on land and sea. Like the Portuguese 
claims it has passed away as one of the curios of history. 

In the eighteenth century, restrictive navigation laws pre- 
venting trade by foreigners with Spanish, French or English colonies 
were the subject of considerable international discussion. These 
laws then seemed to men to interfere with the natural course of 
foreign trade and the term "Freedom of the Seas" as then used 
must be read in relation to them. With the American Revolution 
and the destruction of the domination of Spain in South America 
these old navigation laws disappeared, and possess today mere 
historic interest. During the War of 1812 the American slogan was 
free trade and sailors' rights; free trade not rneaning absence of a 
protective tariff, but rather freedom of the neutrals to trade upon 
the high seas subject only to the usual exercise of belligerent rights 
and unmolested by visitation of their ships for the removal of alleged 
British subjects. 



NfitJTRAL RtGHTS UpON THE SeAS 50 

The open sea is now free to the vessels of all nations. In 
times of peace, Germany, which now clamors so loudly for the 
freedom of the seas, found markets the world over and success- 
fully competed with Great Britain and France in every port of the 
world, building up in an incredibly short time a great merchant 
fleet. 

The phrase in the minds of international lawyers really means 
but one thing. In time of war it has alwaj^s been recognized that 
belligerents possess certain rights to interfere with neutral goods and 
neutral ships upon the high seas. These rights, with the lapses of 
time, and with the growth of nations, became more or less definitely 
fixed. It was in defense of neutral rights that the War of 1812 was 
fought and it was in defense of neutral rights that the series of 
reprisals between France and the United States from 1797 to 1800 
took place. 

The general principles of the freedom of the seas used in this, 
the only accurate sense in which it can be used, are simple. The 
beUigerent has the right to blockade all the ports of his enemy, thus 
cutting off egress and ingress. Such blockade must not be a mere 
pretext enabling him occasionally to seize vessels on the high seas, 
but must be really effective. This is a rule of common sense, as a 
paper blockade would be vexatious and indecisive. Sea commerce 
is necessary to the life of enemy countries. Nations possessing 
sea power would be at a great disadvantage were it not possible to 
use this power to cut off the trade of those nations having prepon- 
derant military power. Thus, in addition to blockade, there is 
the law of contraband. A belligerent may visit and search 
neutral ships in order to discover whether they are bringing to the 
enemy materials useful or available for war purposes. The principle 
was ever simple; the application difficult, for there was no general 
consensus as to the list of articles constituting contraband. Early 
treaties between France, Great Britain, Spain and Holland endeav- 
ored, but always unsatisfactorily, to agree upon the list; provisions 
were sometimes includpd; gun powder, guns and things immediately 
useful in war were always included. Lists rapidly became obsolete 
with changes in warfare and there being no international body 
capable of fixing definitely such list, each nation declared contra- 
band that which it wished to prevent being carried to the enemy. 
The neutrals naturally opposed the extension of the list, the bcllig- 



60 The Annals of the American Academy 

erent as naturally desired to extend it. This conflict in interests is 
inevitable. 

The Declaration of London endeavored to fix a happy solution. 
The list contained the three classes : 

1. Those things useful in war. 

2. Things useful in time of both peace and war, and 

3. Things only useful for peaceful purposes. 

The declaration was not adopted by the nations and Germany and 
the Entente Powers have kept adding to their list of contraband 
until almost every article is included. The distinction between 
absolute and conditional contraband has, owing to the militariza- 
tion of total populations, broken down in practice. Old principles 
have been applied to new situations, and the result has been ad- 
mittedly vexatious to the neutrals. These changes in conditions 
have justified the application of the old principles to cases in which 
they would formerly have been inapplicable. It would have been 
absurd to have allowed goods to pass freely from Holland or Scan- 
dinavia into Germany on the ground that these ports were 
thereby blockaded. To have so held would have been a practical 
abrogation of the right of blockade. Precedent was found in the 
practices employed by the United States during the Civil War and 
sanctioned by the supreme court notably in the cases of The Spring- 
bok, The Peterhoff and others. 

Of late years there has been a movement to estabhsh freedom of 
private property on the high seas and to prescribe that enemy prop- 
erty shall no longer be the subject of destruction. None of these 
plans, however, contemplates the abolition of blockade and contra- 
band; hence, they are really of little more than academic value or 
interest. While the belligerents may extend contraband lists at 
will, it is useless to discuss the immunity of private property 
on the high seas. 

Recent events have demonstrated how little value attaches to 
private property in districts occupied by an enemy. Aside from 
intentional and lawless destruction, requisitions made upon the 
hapless inhabitants quickly destroy all value that their property 
may have. The inhabitants of northern France and Belgium may 
still have a theoretical right to the lands upon which they live, but 
this right is little more than academic; they have been ruthlessly 



Neutral Rights Ufon the Seas 6i 

cut off from all means of livelihood, and in many cases they them- 
selves have been deported. 

Until the nations can reach some definite agreement, like the 
Declaration of London, and provide some force back of it, the 
conceptions of blockade and contraband will seriously interfere, 
as they have always done, with neutral rights. There will always 
be irreconcilable differences of opinion based upon divergence of 
interest between belligerent and neutral. 

There are, however, certain other limitations upon even the free- 
dom of the seas as understood by the law of nations. These limitations 
are of a humanitarian character, and up to the present conflict have 
been very generally respected. The destruction of ships without 
preliminary visit and search is without basis in law and can have 
no justification. The plea of a nation employing it that it is battling 
for the freedom of the seas is not d(!void of elements of humor. 

But what of the future? What does the President of the United 
States mean when he speaks of the "Freedom of the Seas"? Is it 
an almost impossible iridescent dream, or may something be done 
so to safeguard future rights of neutrals that the seas will be open 
to trade free from blockade and contraband? This will depend 
upon whether some sort of world reorganization takes place. So 
long as the existing situation continues it will be impossible to 
obtain satisfactory guarantees for neutrals, nor am I sure that this 
is desirable. Modern invention has brought the nations of the 
world so close together that none of them can afford to remain 
indifferent to any great conflict; such conflict must now too deeply 
affect their interests to permit of an attitude of aloofness. 

The present rules of the sea in times of war are derivatives from 
the existing system of independent nations, each theoretically 
equal and subject to no higher law. I believe this system to be in 
gradual process of disappearance. Some great combination of the 
nations will take place, and provision will be made for declaring 
outlaw the nations violating the world's peace. In that event, 
there will be a trusteeship of sea power, and the enlightened nations 
of the world forming some combination will deal with the offending 
nation as the police deal with the burglar. No question of bellig- 
erent rights can then arise. 

This day may not be so far distant as we now think, for the 
world war is largely changing the mental outlook of vast masses 



62 The Annals of the American Academy 

of people. America will doubtless wish to take part in some great 
movement which, by creating a better world system, will eliminate 
the old differences and dangers to the peaceful neutral and will lead 
to a new "Freedom of the Seas," guaranteed not by phrases without 
force, but by the trusteeship of the sea power of the great enhght- 
ened democracies of the future. 

It is, perhaps, such a "Freedom of the Seas" that the President 
of the United States had in his mind in his eloquent address to the 
Senate on a League of Peace designed to create a new and a better 
international condition. 

The United States will be forced by circumstances out of its 
supposed isolation and must take active part with the great powers 
of Europe in establishing the world's destiny. Some arrangement 
with the democracies of France, Great Britain and, perhaps, Russia 
for the settlement of the innumerable international disputes grow- 
ing out of trade rivalries and undeveloped territory must be made. 
This is the work of the immediate future. Some trusteeship of land 
and sea power, for the promotion of peaceful relations among the 
nations of the world, must ultimately be found, as existing law does 
not and cannot furnish the basis for the settlement of future con- 
troversies; such a combination or super-alliance must busy itself 
with the formulation of a policy. This policy must include the 
recognition of the duties as well as the rights involved in the Monroe 
Doctrine, and proper provision for the maintenance of the Open 
Door in the East and elsewhere among economically and politically 
inferior people. The attempt made by European powers after 
1815, which resulted so unfortunately in the Holy Alliance," must 
be renewed on a broader, sounder basis. In such an arrangement, 
America must wilHngly, and for the protection of its own interests, 
play a great, if not a predominant, part. 

Freedom of the seas has been talked about by a great many 
people, mainly by the people who apologized for making the land 
free for spoliation an.d assassination. The gentle Prussians who 
so amiably shoot civilians right and left in France and Belgium and 
who deport women are quite given to talking of the freedom of the 
seas and of arraigning so-called British navalism. Of course, these 
arguments do not carry great weight. What the German advocates 
really object to is the great naval power of Great Britain, and 
they will object still more when our own naval power, pretty effec- 



Neutral Rights Upon the Seas 63 

tive in its own way, is added, and takes upon itself the task of re- 
straining a great war-mad autocracy which, if left free on the sea to 
obtain needful supplies from the neutral world, would after half 
a century of preparation have been able to exterminate all the 
populations that they did not like and thus Prussianize the world. 
That is what they meant by a free sea — one upon which their 
plans cannot be frustrated. 

And so, indeed, they might have carried out to completion their 
procedure in France and elsewhere in the world if their idea of a free 
sea, a sea on which maritime powers like Great Britain and the United 
States could not possibly act effectively, had been the law. Fortu- 
nately, it was not the law. Men have decreed a long time since that 
war might be carried on upon the sea as upon the land, and so, indeed, 
it has been ; and if there be any real Americans remaining in the United 
States to whom the spectre of British navalism, so fostered by the 
German propaganda, means anything, I would like them to judge the 
matter inteUigently, not from the standpoint of prize court decisions, 
but rather from the standpoint of histor5^ 

On two great occasions in the last hundred years or so, British 
navalism has saved the continent of Europe. In the first place 
from the domination of Napoleon. In many respects I sympathize 
with the aspirations with which Napoleon began on his career, 
and we must not forget that wherever the eagles went he carried 
his great code. But, as Seeley says, after 1807 the aspirations of 
the revolution were satisfied in France, they had run their natural 
limit in Europe, and Napoleon's ambitions had become personal and 
selfish. Then it was that British navalism prevented a despotism 
that might have crushed out national life in Europe. Again, history 
seemingly repeating itself, it was the great British fleet — I happened 
to see it in the Channel, I remember, in late July, 1914, drawn up 
there as it were, almost by a miraculous accident — that saved 
England and, in fact, civilization, from the monster system that so 
ruthlessly destroyed Serbia, Montenegro and Belgium, and is in 
the process of blighting and destroying everything that the human 
mind and human soul has heretofore held dear. 

Now, as to the future. If it may be said that it is not safe to 
leave the great sea power in the hands of one nation, even though 
history indicates that that nation on the whole has carried out its 
trusteeship well and in accordance with freedom and the betterment 



64 The Annals of the American Academy 

of mankind, then indeed we must change the whole world system. 
Instead of nations being isolated units, we will have to have a com- 
bination of nations. 

I have advocated from the beginning of the war, although I am 
in no degree an "Anglomaniac," an understanding — call it a com- 
bination if you wish — it is not necessary or advisable to enter into 
a formal alliance — between the English-speaking democracies of 
the world who have such similar institutions and a common language, 
although the latter is sometimes a disadvantage, because they can 
read each other's newspapers which often creates irritation — 
people who look to the same common law while their lawyers talk 
in the jargon of Blackstone and have the same fundamental pos- 
tulates of Hberty, right and decency. Today this is about to be 
realized, although a year or two ago it might have seemed an 
almost hopeless aspiration. 

Today the English-speaking commonwealths and the French re- 
publics drawing to themselves the other democracies of the world, 
just as the magnet attracts the iron filings, must stand together and 
may in time create something in the nature, to use a much-abused 
and perhaps misleading term, of a super-state, which super-state can 
act as the interpreter of those common aspirations for peace and 
justice of the world; and then the freedom of the sea will mean that 
kind of freedom which we enjoy in the streets of Philadelphia and in 
the streets of New York, that freedom which a regulated community 
maintains because the police are there to repress by law, without 
hatred but with the maximum of celerity and effectiveness, those who 
would break the law; the great Anglo-French- American combination, 
commanding the spiritual and material forces of those nations, 
would insure a freedom of the sea which would mean a free sea for all 
who wished to travel and trade thereon, but when any nation at- 
tempted to interfere with the orderly life of other communities, it 
would have to reckon with that great democratic force, which would 
try it and finding it wanting would suppress not its freedom, but its 
lawlessness. 

That may be something of a prophecy, but today we have 
ceased from a miserable, pusillanimous neutrality that seemed 
immoral and that was rapidly becoming dangerous for our future; 
we have stepped out from a selfish isolation into cooperation with 
the great progressive forces of the world; there is now every reason 
to believe that we will tend to realize the dream of old-time idealists 



Freedom of the Seas 65 

and philosophers and create a new order out of which minor inci- 
dents, such as the freedom of the seas, will naturally flow to aid man- 
kind in his efforts for the only real peace, that which is based upon 
law and justice. 

When we abandoned neutrality, we struck a great blow for the 
existence of law, not any particular law, but all law. We did not 
haggle about rules that lawyers had made as to ultimate destination 
and continuous voyage; the lawyers could wrangle about that for- 
ever. In the Civil War we took one view because it was to our 
interest and we sustained it by the action of lawyers before an arbi- 
tration board; we might do it again if proper counsel was retained. 
We recently took another view as to our relations as neutrals because 
our interest dictated something different. We did not do it with 
any real heart in it. We did not mean to fight over it. There was 
no necessity for doing so. We distinguished between mere rights 
that could be paid for in money and adjusted by a court, and the 
sacred rights of human hfe; those rights which ordinary people call 
"God-given rights" and scientists call by some other name but 
which means exactly the same thing. 



FREEDOM OF THE SEAS^ 

By Chandler P. Anderson, 
New York. 

In this discussion "the freedom of the seas" will be considered 
in relation to the general subject of "America's obligations as the 
defender of international right," and will be treated as relating to 
the obhgations of the United States, while a neutral in the present 
war, to defend international right in regard to the freedom of the 
seas. 

It should be noted in passing that although the phrase "freedom 
of the seas" has played a prominent part in discussions relating to 
the essential conditions for an enduring peace, there has been no 
controversy in recent j^ears about the freedom of the seas in time of 
peace. Under peace conditions in modern times all the waters of 
the earth, which, by reason of their geographical situation, can 
properly be regarded as parts of the high seas, have been free to 

1 Prepared before the United States entered the war. 



66 The Annals of the American Academy 

the mercantile marine of all nations without discrimination or 
preference, and without restraint except against acts which, by 
universal custom and consent, are prohibited as unlawful. 

It is a curious circumstance that the phrase "the freedom of 
the seas in time of war" is self-contradictory. In time of war the 
almost unlimited freedom of the seas enjoyed in time of peace is 
subjected to certain theoretically well-defined and universally 
recognized limitations and restraints. In so far as the vessels of 
belligerents are concerned, the freedom of the seas ceases to be a 
question of the right of law and becomes a question of the right of 
the strongest, subject always to the overruling restraint of the prin- 
ciples of humanity and civilization; and in so far as neutrals are 
concerned, their rights under peace conditions are seriously impaired 
in war time by the rights conferred upon belhgerents under the laws 
of war, which impose extensive limitations upon neutral commerce 
and communications with the enemy. 

The freedom of the seas for neutrals in time of war, therefore, 
means, from the belhgerents' point of view, nothing more than the 
freedom permitted under the limitations imposed by the enforce- 
ment of belligerent rights, and conversely from the neutrals' point 
of view, it means immunity from beUigerent interference beyond 
the hmits which the rights of neutrals imposed upon the enforcement 
of the rights of belligerents. 

It is well to bear in mind that the rights and interests of neutrals 
are not superior to or more privileged than the rights and interests of 
belhgerents. Judging by experience in the present war, neutrals 
may expect to be treated by belligerents with no greater degree of 
consideration than is demanded by the exigencies of the situation. 
The pohcy which the United States has so long and consistently 
urged of making private property, except contraband, immune 
from capture at sea, would be a step in the right direction, but it is 
now evident that the exception of contraband would destroy the 
importance of this pohcy since practically everything destined to an 
enemy country is liable to be classed as contraband under the mod- 
ern method of organizing the entire resources of a nation for war 
purposes. So long as sea power is unequally distributed among 
nations, there is but little prospect of a settlement of this problem 
by international agreement. The only certain way of regulating 
the freedom of the seas in the interest of neutrals in time qf war 



Freedom op the Seas 67 

would be by replacing national sea power by international sea power, 
and that involves the question of disarmament and international 
police, which looks to the prevention of war rather than the freedom 
of the seas in time of war, and therefore is outside the scope of the 
present discussion. 

In the present war, in addition to the familiar questions affect- 
ing the freedom of the seas arising from the law of blockade and of 
contraband, involving the right of seizure and incidentally the right 
of visit and search, and interference with the mails, the rules laid 
down in the Declaration of Paris and the establishment of war zones, 
the United States has also been concerned with the novel questions 
arising from the use of submarines as commerce destroyers, and the 
special regulations for immunity from seizure and condemnation 
adopted in the treaties of 1795 and 1799, as revived by the treaty of 
1828 between the United States and Prussia, the obligations of 
which have since been accepted as binding upon the German 
Empire. 

Apart from the laws invoked against the use of submarines as 
commerce destroyers, none of these laws and regulations is, strictly 
speaking, based on fundamental principles, but in each case they 
represent a compromise between neutral and beUigerent interests as 
sanctioned by international custom and agreement. The inevitable 
conflict between the interests of neutrals and belligerents necessarily 
leads to differences of opinion as to their respective rights under 
these laws and regulations, and the rights of each class are unceas- 
ingly threatened with encroachment and impairment by the exten- 
sion of the rights claimed by the other. 

In so far as this conflict of interest is confined merely to differ- 
ences of opinion as to the meaning of recognized laws and the inter- 
pretation of treaty stipulations, and so long as the conduct of bellig- 
erents is admitted to be controlled by the obligations of inter- 
national law and agreements, the questions of difference can readily 
be dealt with by the usual methods of diplomatic discussion and 
international investigation and arbitration. 

In accordance with the traditional pohcy of the United States, 
and by virtue of its general and special arbitration treaties, ques- 
tions of a legal nature, which do not involve vital interests or 
national honor, and which cannot be settled by diplomacy, must be 
referred to arbitration; and by virtue of a series of treaties for the 



68 The Annals of the American Academy 

advancement of peace, which practically all of the principal bellig- 
erents except the Central Powers entered into with the United 
States shortly after the outbreak of the present war, disputes arising 
between them of everj'^ nature whatsoever shall, when diplomatic 
methods of adjustment have failed, be submitted for investigation 
and report to a permanent international commission, postponing 
the commencement of hostilities meanwhile for at least a year. 

So far as these questions are concerned, therefore, the obhga- 
tion of the United States as the defender of international right was 
clearly defined and could easily be fulfilled. 

Unfortunately, however, the interference with neutral rights 
on the high seas has not been confined in all cases to the mere ques- 
tion of the adjustment, within legal limitations, of the conflicting 
interests of belligerents and neutrals. There have been frequent 
occasions when the limitations of international law and the obliga- 
tion of treaties have been deliberately and admittedly disregarded 
and violated. 

Where these acts of lawlessness were no more than breaches 
of international good faith, even when they amounted to the viola- 
tion of conventional or customary law, they might still be dealt 
with by diplomacy when pecuniary compensation would repair the 
resulting damages, or by the adoption of measures of retaliation or 
the imposition of such penalties as non-intercourse and loss of credit 
among reputable nations. But where these acts of lawlessness 
extended into the realm of barbarity violating the fundamental 
laws of humanity and civilization, what then was the obhgation of 
the United States as the defender of international right? 

Although, as above stated, the laws and regulations governing 
the respective rights of belligerents and neutrals in the freedom of 
the seas are founded on consent, rather than on principle, neverthe- 
less, no rights can be admitted and no practices can be tolerated 
which are inconsistent with the principles of humanity and civiliza- 
tion, upon which all international law is founded, and this is a 
limitation which depends for its enforcement not upon any pro- 
ceedings of international diplomacy or arbitration, but upon the 
force which humanity and civihzation are prepared to exert for 
their own salvation. 

The choice is between the preservation and the degradation of 



Freedom of the Seas <39 

American standards, and on that question, just as in this war, no 
American can remain neutral. 

This brings up for consideration one specific point which I 
wish to discuss on the general subject of the obhgation of the United 
States while a neutral in the present war as the defender of inter- 
national right in relation to the freedom of the seas. 

A pertinent question is the extent of our own responsibility for 
the failure of the belhgercnt nations to govern their conduct toward 
each other during this war in accordance with the requirements of 
international law. This is a question to which the American people, 
as neutrals, seem to have given but little thought. 

Obviously we are not without responsibility for the conduct of 
the belligerent nations toward ourselves, and that is generally 
recognized, but it seems to have been Ughtly assumed that our 
neutrality did not require or permit us to concern ourselves with the 
treatment by belligerents of each other, or of other neutrals, and 
that the responsibility for determining whether or not the rights 
and obligations of international law should be observed rested 
primarily with the belligerent nations. 

The question of what could or should have been done, more 
than has been done by our government, to compel the observance 
of international law by belligerents in their relations with each 
other and with ourselves and with other neutral nations, is a ques- 
tion of governmental policy involving political considerations and 
legislative and executive action which I do not feel called upon to 
discuss here. The point to which I wish to call attention is that 
every neutral nation, and especially the United States as a neutral 
nation in the present war, was not less, and perhaps even more, 
interested than the belligerents themselves in requiring that nations 
at war shall treat not merely neutral nations, but enemy nations as 
well, in accordance with the approved practices and usages of 
international law in time of war. 

This doctrine of neutral responsibility was expounded by 
Senator Root in an address delivered by him at the annual meeting 
of the American Societj^ of International Law in December, 1915, 
from which the following extract is taken : 

International laws violated with impunity must soon cease to exist, and everj^ 
state has a direct interest in preventing those violations which, if permitted to 
continue, would destroy the law. Wherever in the world, the laws which should 



70 The Annals of the American Academy 

protect the independence of nations, the inviolability of their territory, the lives 
and property of their citizens, are violated, all other nations have a right to protest 
against the breaking down of the law. Such a protest would not be an inter- 
ference in the quarrels of others. It would be an assertion of the protesting 
nations' own right against the injury done to it by the destruction of the law upon 
which it relies for its peace and security. What would follow such a protest must 
in each case depend upon the protesting nation's own judgment as to policy, upon 
the feeling of its people and the wisdom of its governing body. Whatever it does, 
if it does anything, will be done not as a stranger to a dispute or as an intermediary 
in the affairs of others, but in its own right for the protection of its own interest. 

Applying this doctrine to the freedom of the seas, the United 
States has been brought into contact at several points with law- 
lessness on the seas in this war in a way which from the beginning 
threatened serious consequences, and chiefly by reason of the 
German method of submarine warfare against commercial vessels. 
This policy was adopted avowedly as a measure of reprisal, and its 
justification has been attempted solely on that ground. It will be 
observed that this ground of justification would be wholly unneces- 
sary if the retaliatory measure did not in itself violate the law. 

I am not going into the law of reprisal further than to point 
out that it imposes certain limitations which must be insisted upon 
to give it the character of a law. It is sufficient to say that nowhere 
in our diplomatic correspondence with Germany on this subject 
has the German government denied the assertions in the notes of 
the United States that the German method of submarine warfare 
is contrary to the rules, practices and spirit of modern warfare, 
and a departure from the naval codes of all nations, including its 
own. 

In denouncing Germany's retaliatory measures, the United 
States government did not base its objections on the technical 
ground that the war measures of the Allies did not furnish just 
cause for retaliation. The reason assigned was that the German 
measures of reprisal violated the requirements of international law. 
If they had not been illegal, or if, in spite of their illegality, they 
could have been justified by describing them as reprisals, our gov- 
ernment would have had no legal ground for complaint. Neutrals 
on merchant ships of belligerents have no higher or different right 
to protection than enemy non-combatants on such ships. If, 
therefore, the methods employed by Germany for the destruction 
of non-combatants on enemy merchant vessels had not been pro- 



Freedom of the Seas 71 

hibited as unlawful even between belligerents, our government 
would have had to acquiesce in Germany's suggestion that American 
citizens be warned that they traveled on belligerent vessels at their 
own risk. The government of the United States took the compre- 
hensive ground that by reason of the inherent unfitness of sub- 
marines for use as commerce destroyers, they could not be used for 
that purpose without violating not only the universally accepted 
rules of international law, but the underlying principles of humanity 
as well, and, therefore, refused to recognize any justification for such 
lawlessness in the guise of retahatory measures. As stated in the 
American note to Germany of May 13, following the destruction 
of the Lusitania: 

the objection to their [Germany's] present method of attack against the trade of 
their enemies Hes in the practical impossibility of employing submarines in the 
destruction of commerce without disregarding those rules of fairness, reason, 
justice, and humanity, which all modern opinion regards as imperative. It is 
practically impossible for the officers of a submarine to visit a merchantman at 
sea and examine her papers and cargo. It is practically impossible for them to 
make a prize of her; and, if they cannot put a prize crew on board of her, they 
cannot sink her without leaving her crew and all on board of her to the mercy of 
the sea in her small boats. These facts it is understood the imperial German 
government frankly admit. We are informed that in the instance of which we 
have spoken time enough for even that poor measure of safety was not given, and 
in at least two of the cases cited not so much as a warning was received. Mani- 
festly submarines cannot be used against merchantmen, as the last few weeks 
have shown, without an inevitable violation of many sacred principles of justice 
and humanity. 

In that statement of the law, the United States, although speak- 
ing only for American interests, made it clear that the destruction 
of enemy non-combatants on belhgerent merchant ships was just 
as unlawful as the destruction of neutral passengers on those ships. 

It thus appears that the destruction of American citizens on 
belligerent merchant ships in consequence of German submarine 
warfare against British commerce brought the United States face to 
face with serious responsibilities imposed upon it by reason of a 
violation of the obligations which international law imposes upon 
belligerents in their treatment of each other. 

But this destruction of American lives was not the only evil 
consequence affecting the United States which grew out of this 
lawless method of attack by one belligerent upon another. Having 



72 The Annals of the American Academy 

drawn the United States into contact with the conflicting interests 
of the belhgerents, Germany promptly seized upon this situation as 
a favorable opportunity for imposing upon the United States the 
entire responsibility for its solution. 

An examination of the diplomatic correspondence will show 
that Germany offered to abandon her submarine warfare against 
commerce if Great Britain would abandon her blockade. 

It will be remembered that the United States disputed the 
validity of this blockade in some of its aspects, and demanded 
its abatement, but without success. Germany admitted frankly 
that the question of the observance or non-observance by the United 
States of this blockade was a question to be dealt with solely be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain. This was distinctly 
stated in the German note of February 15, 1915, as follows: 

The German government have given due recognition to the fact that as a 
matter of form the exercise of rights and the toleration of wrong on the part of 
neutrals is limited by their pleasure alone and involves no formal breach of neu- 
trality. 

But, although as here admitted the German government was 
not justified in holding that the neutral nations in submitting to an 
interruption of their trade with Germany were unneutral or un- 
friendly, and although the rights of neutrals, and not the rights of 
Germany, were being interfered with, for the restrictions imposed 
by the law of blockade are imposed in the interest of neutrals and 
not of the blockaded enemy, nevertheless Germany proceeded to 
call the neutrals to account for acquiescing in the blockade and 
assigned this interruption of neutral trade with Germany as the 
justification for the German reprisals against the Allies. 

In view of these considerations and of Germany's attitude 
toward neutrals in this controversy, it is evident that Germany's 
measures of reprisal were in effect reprisals against neutrals for 
acquiescing in Great Britain's interruption of neutral trade with 
Germany, although, as stated above, the German government itself 
has admitted that neutrals are under no obligation to engage in 
trade with Germany, and that they may acquiesce in its discon- 
tinuance without a breach of neutrality. 

Yet the German government in its diplomatic correspondence 
with the United States has frequently asserted that its chief purpose 
in using submarines as commerce destroyers was to maintain the 



Freedom of the Seas 73 

freedom of the seas, and this assertion has been put forward ostensi- 
bly on the basis of protecting neutral rights. 

Obviously Germany could not have expected that its ruthless 
submarine warfare against commerce, involving the destruction of 
neutral lives and property, would serve as an inducement to the 
neutrals to renew their trade with Germany. 

Germany's real position was that if Great Britain was unwilling 
to agree to abandon the blockade, the United States could not 
object to Germany's measures of reprisal without first bringing 
effective pressure to bear upon Great Britain to abandon the block- 
ade. In other words, that objections to illegal measures of reprisal 
could not be urged by a neutral government which had submitted 
to the alleged illegal acts in consequence of which the measures of 
reprisal were adopted. 

The stoppage in our trade in war supphes for the Allies has 
been the chief purpose of German diplomacy in this country ever 
since the establishment of the British blockade shutting out all 
supplies from Germany, and that purpose has been their guiding 
star in their controversy with us about submarine warfare. 

The plan was simple and adroit. If it could be made to appear 
that Great Britain's blockade was the responsible cause of Ger- 
many's submarine warfare, then, in order to settle that question, it 
might be possible to arouse the United States to resentment against 
the British blockade, which the United States had characterized as 
unlawful. It was anticipated that Great Britain would refuse to 
abandon the blockade, and it was hoped that a refusal by Great 
Britain to do this would result in the adoption by the United States 
of an embargo against the exportation of war munitions to the Allies, 
which was the result chiefly desired by Germany. 

This plan failed, but the purpose underlying it persisted, and 
the outcome serves to show how easily and how deeply the rights of 
a neutral nation may be affected in consequence of the violation of 
the rules of international law by belligerents in their treatment of 
each other. 

It will be remembered that the government of the United 
States refused to consider Germany's suggestion that submarine 
warfare on commerce should be contingent upon securing relief 
from British interference with neutral trade with Germany, and 



74 The Annals of the American Academy 

that when this suggestion was renewed in the Sussex correspondence 
the final reply of the government of the United States was that : 

it cannot for a moment entertain, much less discuss, a suggestion that respect by 
German naval authorities for the rights of citizens of the United States upon the 
high seas should in any way or in the shghtest degree be made contingent upon the 
conduct of any other government affecting the rights of neutrals and non-com- 
batants. Responsibihty in such matters is single, not joint; absolute, not relative. 

Germany made no reply at that time, and by reason of their 
inaction gained the credit for acquiescence. It now appears that 
they were waiting only because delay best suited their convenience. 
The German Chancellor said in March of last year that "when the 
most ruthless methods are considered as best calculated to lead to 
victory, then they must be employed," but they were not ready 
then — they were merely biding their time — and it was not until 
January of this year that they considered that the time had come. 
All this was frankly stated by the German Chancellor when on 
January 31, he officially announced that the moment for which 
they had been waiting to renew ruthless submarine warfare had at 
last arrived. He said: 

Last autumn the time was not yet ripe, but today the moment has come when, 
with the greatest prospect of success, we can undertake this enterprise. We 
must, therefore, not wait any longer. Where has there been a change? 

In the first place, the most important fact of all is that the number of our 
submarines has been very considerably increased as compared with last spring, 
and thereby a firm basis has been created for success. 

And further: 

The military situation, as a whole, permits us to accept all consequences which an 
unrestricted U-boat war may bring about, and as this U-boat war in aU circum- 
stances is the means to injure our enemies most grievously, it must be begun. 

He seems to have made the German theory of the freedom of the 
seas sufficiently clear. 

The usages and customs of war which have been worked out 
through centuries of development, and which at the beginning of 
the present war represented the enlightened thought of civilization 
as to what should be the rights and duties of belligerents toward 
each other and toward neutrals, seem to have been based for the 
most part on the theory that war is a game which must be played 
according to rules. Most of these rules have been wiped out by 
the vastness of the scale on which a war involving more than half 



Freedom of the Seas 75 

the world must be conducted, and by the destructiveness and 
frightfuhiess of the methods which have been introduced, producing 
an upheaval in the stability of things very like a tremendous process 
of nature which no man-made law can govern, and which is not 
amenable to the principles of morality or humanity. The only 
restraining influence is force against force. 



ELEMENTS OF A JUST AND DURABLE PEACE 

By Philip Marshall Brown, 
Princeton University. 

To talk of peace in times of peace is an agreeable form of specu- 
lation. To talk of peace in times of war is a solemn obligation. 
There must be preparedness for peace as well as for war. 

Peace propaganda and discussion in the United States, while 
the world was at peace, or this country merely a neutral with the 
rest of the world at war, has been more or less academic and un- 
profitable. Sentiment has played a larger part than reason. There 
have always been earnest souls longing for peace — both spiritual 
and temporal. The horrors of war have accentuated these longings. 
The demand for the prevention of war, however, has become so 
fervid as to be hysterical. The cause of world-peace has been dis- 
credited, in part, by irrational denunciations of war, or ill-consid- 
ered proposals for its elimination. 

Now we are at war we should have a clearer mental vision. 
War is a marvelous stimulus to thought. It demands that we face 
honestly the great realities of existence. It does not allow us to 
hnger in a fool's paradise. It compels us to test preconceived theo- 
ries in a fiery furnace. They must undergo "ordeal by battle. " 

We have had too much academic discussion, not only con- 
cerning peace, but in regard to almost every other field of human 
interest. In law, education, sociology, politics and religion, we 
have indulged in arguments, subtle distinctions, and intellectual 
refinements that have obscured the most elemental, primal truths. 
We have been in danger of losing that primitive power — shared by 
savages and children alike — the power of distinguishing between 
right and wrong, justice and injustice. We have ignored the pro- 
found truth expressed by Montesquieu, that: "The sentiment of 
justice was created in man before reason itself." And war comes 
as a supreme corrective to this insidious academic anaemia. It 
hurls us into the center of the stupendous problems of the world. 
We are no longer onlookers and critics. The question of world- 
peace is now our own practical problem. It has ceased to be 9, 

76 



Elements of a Just and Durable Peace 77 

matter for academic discussion. We have a right to be consulted 
and to be heard. We are bound to discover, if we can, the final 
goal of all this horror and heroism. 

What, then, are "the elements of a just and durable peace?" 
The very phrasing of the subject is in itself illuminating. What do 
we mean by 'peace? What is international justice? What is 
durable in human affairs? What are the elements that guarantee 
peace, justice and permanency among nations? 

First of all, we should recognize that peace is not the supreme 
aim of society. Like pleasure, contentment, character and virtue, 
peace is only a by-product. It is a result. It comes to the indi- 
vidual and the community alike when men live honestly and justly; 
when they have fought with the beasts at Ephesus, and conquered 
the forces of evil. Peace comes through warfare with vice and 
injustice. The supreme aim of society is not peace itself, but the 
triumph of justice. And men often know peace only when they are 
actually engaged in the fight for justice. 

Nothing could have been more infelicitous than the choice of 
the name of "The League to Enforce Peace." The enforcement of 
peace would be as abhorrent as it would be futile. The idea is as 
offensive as the so-called "pacification" of peoples by the armies of 
tyrants or conquerors. There can be no enforcement of peace, no 
true pacification where wrongs remain unavenged, and justice does 
not prevail. The true aim of all who desire peace should be, not 
the enforcement of peace, but the enforcement of justice. 

Justice, then, being the final goal of society, how is it to be 
attained? In any association of men for mutual benefit, the first 
aim is to determine their interests and rights. They then seek to 
find the most effective way to protect their rights. 

In order to determine rights, it is essential that men should 
share common conceptions of rights and obHgations. They must 
think fundamentally alike. In order to protect their rights, they 
must have a direct control over the making of law, its interpretation 
and enforcement. Men are unwiUing to abdicate entirely their 
rights into the hands of any absolute, final authority. The senti- 
ment of justice is, indeed, a primitive instinct. Though torrents of 
blood must flow, men will never cravenly surrender the cause of 
justice for the cause of peace. 

If tWs t>e l^rue within, a nation, how much more significant 13 



78 The Annals of the American Academy 

this same truth within the community of nations! We must never 
lose sight of the rightful aims of nationalism. Why do men group 
themselves in various national communities if not for the pursuit of 
justice? Nations, like men, demand the utmost freedom to attain 
this end along their own lines of preference. Is not the world 
vastly the richer through the intellectual, political, economic, artis- 
tic, ethical and religious contributions of free, independent nations? 
The basis of international peace must of necessity consist in the 
utmost respect for the right of nations to the fullest amount of 
freedom required by their legitimate national aspirations. 

How, then, are international rights to be determined? We 
ought at once to recognize the profoundly significant fact that all 
nations do not share common conceptions of rights and obhgations. 
It is lamentably true, as Maximilian Harden has pointed out, that 
the rest of the world is against Germany "because they do not 
think as we Germans think. " Before we may attempt to determine 
the simplest rights of nations, Germany, Japan, the United States, 
Nicaragua, Spain, Russia and all the other nations of the world, 
must learn to think alike in fundamentals concerning right and 
wrong, privileges and duties, justice and injustice. Until men in 
free democracies are permitted to indicate clearly their national 
preferences, we cannot rightfully pretend even to draw the bound- 
aries of nations with any certainty of justice. Witness Poland, 
Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, and other disembodied na- 
tional spirits — not to fail to mention Ireland. 

If it has been impossible as yet to determine even the elemental 
rights of nations, how fantastic it seems to attempt solemnly to 
discuss the means of enforcing their rights ! I do not mean to imply 
that there is no well-defined body of international rights entitled 
to protection. There are, of course, many such rights consecrated 
by usage, judicial decisions and treaties. In times of peace, these 
rights are universally respected and automatically enforced by the 
courts or the executives of civilized nations. Diplomacy, in ordi- 
nary times, pays unostentatious homage to these rights. There 
exist facilities for international justice through arbitration, com- 
missions of enquiry, etc., though these agencies need to be perfected 
and augmented. It still remains true, however, that, until the basic 
rights of nations are clearly determined by their active, intelligent, 
mutual consent, it is folly to talk of coercion. There can be no just 



Elements of a Just and Durable Peace 79 

coercion of men or of nations where there has been no clear defini- 
tion of their rights. This is the bed-rock of international justice. 
This is the sure basis of international peace; rights must first be 
determined before nations may be subjected to restraint by inter- 
national police or leagues of nations. 

It would seem clear that the determination of the rights of 
nations is a matter of mutual agreement. They may not be deter- 
mined arbitrarily by any one nation or by any group of powerful 
nations. This means, in concrete terms, that the victor in war 
must take care that he does not impose conditions of peace which 
violate the essential national interests of the vanquished. Arl^i- 
trary annexations of territory, and the subjection of alien peoples 
can only lead to other wars. Witness the criminal wrongs of the 
Treaty of Berlin whose baleful effects we are still beholding today! 
The utterly vicious principle of the balance of power which hitherto 
has dominated and devastated Europe must definitely be aban- 
doned. Enduring peace can be laid on no such shifting foundations. 

The participation of the United States in the great war war- 
rants our insisting that it be ended in accordance with sound prin- 
ciples wliich shall guarantee the future law and order of the world. 
We cannot assume direct responsibility for all the complicated 
adjustments which must take place in Europe at the end of the war. 
We are bound, however, to determine clearly in our own minds, and 
vigorously to support those principles which should be obeyed in 
the making of peace. 

These principles would seem to be, in brief, the principles of na- 
tionalism, self-government and freedom of trade. The instinctive 
desire of men to group together in accordance with their distinct 
national preferences, whether of race, language, religion, political 
traditions, social customs or economic needs, must be respected. 
This is fundamental. It is directly opposed to the archaic prin- 
ciple of balance of power. If men object that certain nations — 
Russia, for example — may be a menace because of their size, it 
must be conceded that greater harm has already come through the 
denial of nationalistic aspirations. Idealists, as well as statesmen, 
would do well to cease their opposition to the just claims of nation- 
alities. The spirit of nationalism is a dynamic force which may 
not be repressed with safety. It need not be in opposition to inter- 
nationalism, if respected. It will disrupt the world, if not respected. 



80 The Annals of the American Academy 

The right of men to govern themselves is the second funda- 
mental principle which must be respected in order to encourage 
enduring peace. If it should not prove feasible in every instance 
to resurrect dismembered states, and draw anew the map of the 
world, at least the right of men to govern themselves in autonomous 
communities must be conceded. Complete independence, though 
supremely desirable, is not an absolute sine qua non of nationalism. 
The concession of autonomy in local government, in Poland or 
Ireland, for example, as in Bavaria or Canada, would go far towards 
the contentment and peace of nations. 

The third principle which should be observed, is that of free- 
dom of trade. Tariff fortresses constitute a menace as well as 
standing armies. Economic strangulation, as in the case of Serbia 
at the hands of Austria, may be as insidiously effective in the long 
run as open warfare. The threat of the Entente Allies to continue 
an economic warfare against Germany at the end of the present 
conflict should be viewed with alarm by all friends of world-peace. 

Nations will be compelled some day to come to a mutual under- 
standing concerning the exchange of products. They cannot tol- 
erate cut-throat competition. In many cases, such as Serbia and 
Poland, for example, freedom of trade with neighboring countries 
would be a necessary corollary to their right to exist as separate, or 
autonomous national states. One dislikes being classified as a 
radical. The logic of the situation, however, should lead us to 
recognize that nations, sooner or later, must not merely destroy 
their economic barriers; they must also come to definite under- 
standings concerning the very basic questions of production and 
distribution. They cannot abandon protective dikes against the 
flooding of their markets by the products of cheap labor unless they 
first reach an agreement concerning the production and the dis- 
tribution of these products. If this understanding is not realized, 
then protectionist wars will continue; nations will suffer; discon- 
tent will ensue, and then hate and war itself. There is a danger, of 
course, of giving too much weight to the influence of economic fac- 
tors, in history, morals and politics. But we cannot afford to ignore, 
it seems to me, the profound significance of the principle of regu- 
lated freedom of trade as a necessary element in the peace of the 
world. 

Most of the writers on the law of nations have placed great 



Elements or a Just and Durable Peace 81 

stress on the so-called absolute, inherent, fundamental rights of 
states. Much of this discussion — particularly that relating to the 
sovereignty and equahty of nations — seems academic. The right 
of a nation to exist, however, is the basic principle of international 
law. But this does not imply the consecration of an iniquitous 
status quo. Certain nations built up in flagrant denial of the rights 
of nationalities — -Austria-Hungary, for example — can claim no abso- 
lute right of existence. National boundaries in many instances 
must be completely retraced before international law may prop- 
erly be invoked in defence of an alleged right to exist. 

The object of a great war like the present should be an endur- 
ing peace. And an enduring peace cannot be found unless it be 
based on sound principles. Such principles would seem in the main 
to be: the recognition of the rights of nationalities; the right to 
self-government; and^ regulated freedom of trade. If warring 
nations are not prepared to make peace in a spirit of equity and 
in obedience to sound principles, they must inevitably face the 
necessity of future wars. In such an event, it would be both futile 
and unpardonable to talk of perpetual peace. 

To summarize briefly, the essential elements of a just and dura- 
ble peace would seem to be the following: 

I The necessity of common conceptions of rights and obliga- 
tions, of justice and injustice among nations. 

II The clear determination of the fundamental rights of nations 
in accordance with the principles of nationalism, self-government, and 
freedom of trade. 

III The clear determination of all the other rights of nations 
by mutual agreement. 

IV There shall be no collective coercion of nations by interna- 
tional police, or by any disguised form of international executive, before 
their rights shall be clearly determined. 

V The protection of such rights must be accorded in such a form 
that there shall be no menace to the freedom of men to pursue their legiti- 
mate national ends. 

Having faced squarel}^ this stupendous problem that now con- 
fronts the United States, we should try to outline our immediate 
and practical duty in behalf of enduring peace. As regards the 
present war, we ought by every possible agency of speech and press 



82 The Annals of the American Academy 

to make perfectly certain that the United States does not become 
partner in any peace settlement made in defiance of the principles 
of international justice. If we are permitted to make sacrifices for 
the cause of international law and order, we must be permitted also 
to insist that the final goal of all this sacramental sacrifice shall be 
international justice. We are bound to oppose with all our might a 
peace imposed on the vanquished to gratify the desire for revenge, 
for territorial aggrandizement or power. May we not consider the 
entry of the United States in this war as a sacred opportunity to 
mediate between ancient enmities, and to inspire in the belligerents 
of the Old World confidence in new invigorating principles of world- 
peace? May we not through the horrors of war thus accomplish 
the ideals for peace which we had vainly hoped to accomplish through 
peace? 

Considering the problem of a just peace in its general aspect, 
irrespective of the present war, our duty would seem primarily to 
be that of helping all nations to understand each other. They must 
learn to sympathize and think ahke before they can lay the founda- 
tions of durable peace. This is a gigantic task of education and 
concihation. The agencies for this conciliative function are many, 
however, and include, especially, international conferences at The 
Hague and elsewhere to discuss the common needs and rights of 
nations. They include the various international unions such as 
the Universal Postal Union, the Red Cross, the Agricultural Insti- 
tute, the Brussels Office of Customs Tariffs, the Interparliamentary 
Union and the Bureau of Arbitration at The Hague. 

But we in America should be particularly interested in the 
upbuilding of so promising an agency for international peace as the 
Pan-American Union at Washington. Admitting the supreme 
difficulties in the way of world-peace, we can at least, as practical 
idealists, turn our attention to the immense problem of bringing 
about the reign of justice and peace on this hemisphere. Let us try 
first of all to bring about an understanding between the twenty-one 
nations of this portion of a distracted world. Let us induce them 
to gather together to discuss, recommend, and to legislate in regard 
to their common interests. Having found a way to determine their 
rights, we may then properly proceed with the other difficult task of 
securing the most effective agencies for the interpretation and the 
protection of such rights. We have in the Pan-American Union the 



Bases of Just and Enduring Peace 83 

very agency for so magnificent a work. There would seem to exist 
no insuperable difficulties in the way of invigorating that institution, 
and giving it such increased powers of investigation, discussion, rec- 
ommendation, and even of legislation, that it may become the pro- 
totype of that greater world clearing house for the advancement of 
the mutual interests, the rights and the peace of nations which all 
men desire. 

In conclusion, we would do well to be on our guard lest the 
realization of the horrors of war should create an atmosphere of 
hysteria around this supreme problem of international justice. 
Horrible as this war is, it must not prompt us to recommend expe- 
dients for peace wliich might involve any fundamental denial of 
justice. We must remember that there are horrors of peace as well 
as of war. Where vice and wickedness flourish, where injustice 
reigns unrestrained, it is criminal to insist on enduring peace. 

Furthermore, we must recognize that, humanly speaking, 
nothing is permanent. There can be no perpetual peace. It may 
be striven for only through eternal conflict with* wrong. And to 
secure the triumph of justice between nations, men, at times, must 
be wilHng and eager to fight. 

By an extraordinary paradox, then, war itself must sometimes 
be accepted as a righteous and an essential element of a just peace. 
Militarists, pacifists and all good patriots ahke should fervently 
unite in the firm determination that so grim an element shall not 
have been employed in vain. 



THE BASES OF A JUST AND ENDURING PEACE 

By Franklin H. Giddings, Ph.D., LL.D., 

Columbia University, New York. 

Peace at any price would be the abject surrender of justice 
and the abandonment of moraUty, and could never be an enduring 
peace. Peace at anj^ price means the surrender of civilization, 
liberty, responsibility and self-respect. It means the exchange of 
a freeman's birthright for a villain's broth. In shame and humilia- 
tion we have to take an inventory of those individuals in our popu- 
lation that would make such surrender and would so barter. Rela- 



84 The Annals of the American Academy 

tively, however, they are not numerous and never can be. They 
are among those extreme variates from human normahty, which 
range from persons of low intelHgence and grotesque criminahty at 
one end of the frequency curve, to mad geniuses and martyrs at the 
other end. All such variates, the good and the bad, the desirable 
and the undesirable, get crowded to the wall and exterminated 
when the struggle for existence is really severe, but when life is as 
soft as it has been in England and the United States for fifty or more 
years past, they are able to live and to propagate. Fortunately, 
they have never controlled public policy on a large scale, or for a 
long time, and they never will control it. Least of all will peace at 
any price men control. The normal man wants peace not as an 
end but as a means. He wants peace because he wants to feel that 
his wife and children are safe while he does his day's work. He 
wants peace if therewith he can enjoy liberty and a good conscience; 
otherwise he wants to fight, and fight he will, with a joy pure and 
undefiled. This is not mere argument. It is statistical fact which 
happens to fix and to define the possibilities of enduring peace. 
Variates from type are minorities, normal men are a majority. The 
normal majority will not accept peace at any price. They will 
fight. For the purposes of peace propaganda that hope to get 
somewhere the peace-at-any-price man is obstructive. 

There can be no just and no enduring peace between absolut- 
ism and democracy. 

The American Revolution was not taken seriously in the throne 
rooms of continental Europe. A desperately impoverished popu- 
lation of less than three million souls, dwelling three thousand miles 
from anywhere, could safely be let alone to indulge itself, for a time, 
in the odd conceits of republicanism. The experiment would prob- 
ably fail, and, if it did not, Europe could at any time curb its power 
for mischief. 

The French Revolution was another matter. That upheaval 
sent chills down royal spines. The guillotine in the Place de la 
Concorde was near enough to be seen and heard when one lay awake 
in the night. Also, it was known to be inexpensive, making no 
impossible demands upon the financial resources of a third estate, 
and was understood to be practical. It cut off two Bourbon heads 
of the first class and plenty of others only less respectable; and 
yet, and this was the worst pf it, its operations were only an episode, 



Bases of Just and Enduring Peace 85 

as monarchical statesmen from Westminster to Moscow quite well 
apprehended. The real revolution had been half accomplished 
before sensational occurrences began; it proceeded quietly and 
was relentless. 

An entire people had awakened, and in coming to conscious- 
ness of itself had discovered that it was strong enough to throw off 
intolerable burdens. Then it found a way to put forth its strength. 
Ancient privileges of rank and class that had been looked upon as 
eternal verities of the constitution were not merely abolished ; they 
were annihilated, with characteristic French thoroughness, and the 
ground was cleared for a republican scheme of rights, liberties and 
laws. 

From the confiscation of the properties of the nobles and the 
church in 1789 until the invasion of Belgium in 1914 there never 
was an hour when, so far as the human mind could see, any derail- 
ing of the train of events which Avas headed for the battle of the 
Marne, would have been possible. 

The monarchs of Europe perceived that unless the revolution 
could be stopped in France it would extend throughout Europe 
and sweep all the dynasties away together. Therefore, they at- 
tacked France. That attack discovered Napoleon Bonaparte and 
put him in power. 

Bonaparte knew that his fortunes must be built upon the 
substantial results of the revolution, and he therefore, in setthng 
the estate, saw to it that those results were embodied and defined 
in the Code Napoleon. In conquering Europe, however, and build- 
ing an empire he gave rein to his own ambition, thereby imperiling 
the liberties for which, presumably, he never had cared save in so 
far as he could use them for his own purposes. His overthrow was 
the destruction of a personal but dangerous military absolutism, 
but it was also the triumph of reactionary monarchism. Democ- 
racy could not have made its way if the first empire had survived, 
but from the moment that the Emperor was retired to St. Helena, 
the war was on again between popular politics and the dynasties, 
all superficial appearances to the contrary, notwithstanding. The 
Chartist disturbances in England, revolutionary activities in 
France in the thirties and forties, and the abortive revolution in 
Germany in 1848 were the futile outbreakings of democratic forces 
ever increasing in strength, but not then strong enough for so tre- 
mendous a task as they had attempted. 



86 The Annals of the American Academy 

The rest of the story is brief, and relatively uncomplicated. 
The human animal and his interests being what they are, the Na- 
poleonic wars made inevitable the Prussian aggression of 1870-1871 ; 
and the creation of the German Empire by successful Prussia made 
inevitable the monstrous Prussian arrogance which, from the acces- 
sion of Wilham II until Verdun, fed itself upon dreams and plans 
of world empire. The boastful proclamation of this purpose, and 
the systematic creation of the most tremendous militaristic system 
ever seen or imagined, with declared intent to use it aggressively, 
made inevitable the alliance of Great Britain with France (her foe 
of a century ago) against Germany, her ally then against Napoleon. 

So, at last, the giant democracies of western Europe and the 
giant absolutisms of central Europe confronted each other on the 
fields of France and Flanders in life and death grapple. The issue, 
that had been more or less confused, became sharply defined. De- 
mocracy or dynasty will be sovereign, from this time on. 

The case of Russia is not less clear than the issue between 
France and Prussia. The man who until a month ago denied that 
this war is a conflict between democracy and dynasty because, 
forsooth, Russia was fighting as the ally of France and of Great 
Britain, was one of those pubhcists described in holy writ who 
darken council by words without knowledge. The Russian dynasty, 
Teutonic in sympathy and more than half Teutonic in blood, would 
have fought with Germany if it had dared. It did not dare because 
the Russian people, including the business classes, were ripe for 
revolution, and were in sympathy with the aspirations of the demo- 
cratic peoples. 

Therefore let the blazing truth about this war be repeated, 
emphasized, driven home, to every mind. This war is the life and 
death fight of dynasty at bay. It is the most portentous as it is 
the most gigantic and the most dreadful conflict in all human his- 
tory, because it is the last stand of the massed and organized forces 
of despotism against liberty, enlightenment and progress. If it is 
won by the democratic peoples it is won forever. 

If the democratic peoples are defeated, what then? Then 
fighting will continue. All the work of centuries must be done 
over again. Insurrections, rebellions, revolutions must once more 
be the chief interest of men worthy of the name. Whoso talks of 
peace will deserve and will get only the scorn of the brave and the 
just. 



Bases of Just and Enduring Peace 87 

Here, again, it is fact, not argument, that is presented. Man- 
kind has not tasted self-government and individual liberty for noth- 
ing, A major number of human l)eings in western Europe and in 
America will not submit tamely to the absolutist rule from which 
they have for a hundred years believed themselves to have escaped. 
Less than ten years before the war began everybody was predicting 
that the existing generation would see hberal constitutional govern- 
ment established over the entire earth. Turkey, Persia, China, 
would be republics at least in name and under the stimulus of self- 
respecting liberty would rapidly become republics in fact. Per- 
haps this forecast was a dream, but if it was, it will be dreamed 
again. 

There is one more possibility to consider. If the war ends in 
a peace without victory, what may we expect? There are only two 
things that can happen, and therefore only two things that a rea- 
soning mind can expect. The forces of democracy will more quickly 
recover and set about the business of preparing an adequate defence 
against the next onslaught of absolutism, or the forces of absolutism 
will more quickly recover and set about the business of preparation 
for the next war of aggression. The two sets of forces will not long 
remain in equilibrium. Peace without victory will be an armistice, 
nothing more. 

The problem is now fully before us. We may look at it from 
any angle. We may turn it inside out and outside in. The issue 
remains specific, unalterable. There can be no enduring peace on 
this earth until absolutism is destroyed. A peace program that 
does not squarely face this fact is a pipe dream. 

If we do face it squarely we shall think straight about the pos- 
sibilities and practicalities of all proposed leagues to enforce peace. 

A universal league, including all the sovereign nations would 
be nothing more or less than the existing state of affairs under an- 
other name. It would be the most absurd perpetual-motion ma- 
chine ever yet experimented with. The relations of the nations 
to one another, as defined and regulated by the international law 
of the world as it stood on July 31, 1914, constituted a world league 
of peace, neither more nor less, and it went to smash. A league to 
keep the peace presumes that its component nations will honorably 
keep faith with one another. A league to enforce peace must be 
composed of nations that will both keep faith with one another and 



88 The Annals of the American Academy 

practically act in cooperation with one another against the law 
breaker. Practically, these requirements can be met and will be 
met only if the component nations of the league share a common 
civilization, hold a common attitude toward questions of right, 
liberty, law and polity, and share a sense of common danger threaten- 
ing from nations whose interests, ambitions, moralities and politics 
are antagonistic. 

Practically, therefore, there are now only two possibilities open 
to the would-be makers of the leagues to enforce peace. There can 
be no universal league. That would be nothing but the adoption 
of a sounding name and a platform of pious resolutions. There 
can be no coherent, workable league made up of both democratic 
and dynastic nations. Fellowship of the wolf with the lamb has 
not yet been invented. Peace between the hyena and the dog does 
not endure, and wild, or domesticated, asses have not ceased to be 
the prey of Uons in the wilderness. But there can be a league of 
democratic nations to safeguard republican civilization in the world, 
and there can be a league of dynastic nations to perpetuate dynastic 
authority and power. 

These two leagues exist now, and into one or the other of them 
every nation in the world will inevitably be drawn. One is a league 
to enforce peace, because peace will come and will endure when the 
other one of these leagues is crushed. 

Happily the United States has dropped the fatuous belief that 
it could stand aside and, from safe isolation, watch the titanic strug- 
gle between liberty and despotism. In the moral order of the uni- 
verse it is not permitted to a nation, any more than it is permitted 
to an individual, to be neutral upon the great fundamental issues of 
conduct. He who does not dare to stand for what in his inmost 
soul he believes to be right must surely die the second death of 
those who become the craven slaves to what they once held to be 
wrong. The United States will worthily play its part in the league 
of the democratic peoples to safeguard those political principles 
which the league of the thirteen original American states was the 
first power to proclaim. Pacifists, like the givers of indiscriminate 
alms, whom they mentally resemble, we may always have with us, 
but the American nation will not be a partner and accomplice of 
dynasty. 



Foundation of Society of States 89 



ON WHAT PRINCIPLES IS THE SOCIETY OF STATES 
TO BE FOUNDED? 

By Henri La Fontaine, 
Member of Belgium Senate, Brussels, Belgium. 

Belgium is indeed the symbol of the violation of international 
law. The integrity of Belgium was in the hands of the big powers. 
Neutrahzation was guaranteed to her in 1839. It was certainly a 
favor for Belgium, and it permitted my country — small as it was, 
with its population at that time of three million people, nearly eight 
million now — to become, in the commerce of the world, the fifth 
among the nations and to enjoy the biggest exportation and im- 
portation with the exception of France, Great Britain, the United 
States and Germany. 

But Belgium was neutralized, not because the peoples had some 
sympathy for this country, but because it was necessary to create 
a buffer state between the three then most powerful empires of 
Europe, namely, Great Britain, France and Prussia, and permit 
both the latter ones to leave their frontiers facing Belgium unfortified. 
There were no fortifications either in Germany or in France near the 
Belgian border. This was the cause of our misfortune. It was 
because those frontiers were open that Germany invaded Belgium; 
it was the easiest way for her to get to Paris. 

Now this situation, I hope, will be changed after this war. We 
have the confidence that Belgium will be restored and restored for- 
ever; there is no doubt about it. But to this end it is necessary, for 
Belgium and for all the small nations, that their existence should be 
guaranteed no more by some big powers, but by all the powers of the 
world. But something more is wanted if a lasting and durable 
peace is to be secured : the nations of the world ought to agree about 
some principles, precisely those principles which have been since 
more than a century advocated by the pacifists. I am one of such 
pacifists which were despised, which were criticized, but I am not an 
ultra-pacifist; and I claim to remain a pacifist even in saying that 
in this world, unfortunately, some force is to be used during some 
time more, perhaps during a short time, perhaps during some 
centuries, but force submissive to law and the guardian of law. 



90 The Annals of the American Academy 

Now, what are such main principles which should be recognized 
by the Society of Nations, League of States or Union of States which 
were so much spoken of during these last two years? The first one 
should proclaim that the independence and the territorial integrity 
of all nations are guaranteed by all nations. That means that the 
Monroe Doctrine, as Mr. Woodrow Wilson said so clearly in one of 
his speeches, should become the doctrine of the world; instead of 
having the Monroe Doctrine applied to the nations of the western 
hemisphere alone, it should be applied to every nation on earth. 
It is only by a mutual protection that the world will be safe. 

The second principle is the right of the peoples to dispose freely 
of themselves. There should be no more subservient nations but by 
their own will. The difficulties in the European situation derive 
largely from the fact that so many peoples in Europe were subjected 
to nations and to governments which did not get their just powers 
from the consent of the governed. Germany has under her rule, 
Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, and the Polish provinces; 
Austria is the hated master of Galicia, Bohemia, Croatia, Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, Trieste and Trentino; and Turkey, before the 
last Balkan War, was the oppressive owner of a part of Serbia and a 
part of Roumania, of a part of Greece and of Albania, and Armenia 
and Syria in Asia Minor are always under her sanguinary domination. 

Is it not interesting that precisely the three central powers, now 
united against mankind, were indeed the powers which had the 
largest number of foreign peoples under their abhorred domination? 
It is exactly that which ought to be changed. If it isn't changed, 
the world will be placed, after some years, in precisely the same 
unsettled condition out of which it was vainly trying to escape 
during the last years of the last century and the first years of this 
century. The acceptance of the principle here advocated by us 
and its drastic application are the basic conditions of a lasting 
Society of States. 

The third principle is the solemn recognition of the equality of 
states, not a material equality, of course, but an equality of right, as 
we have introduced it in our national constitutions; as every citizen 
is equal to any other citizen, be he small or large, rich or poor, so 
should it be among the states. That principle was an undisputed 
one in international law and applied in all international and diplo- 
matic gatherings. It was, namely, maintained at the two Peace 



Foundation of Society of States 91 

Conferences at The Hague, but during the second Peace Con- 
ference, behind the scenes in discussions among diplomats, the ques- 
tion of a change was raised and it was proposed to grant to the big 
powers in the world a preeminent position; but at once and with 
full reason, all the small nations objected, of course. I claim that 
the principle of equality should be rigidly maintained, because it is 
as important in international intercourse as it is in private inter- 
course. The small states have the same interest in having their 
rights vindicated and guaranteed by the Society of States as a 
powerful state, just the same as a citizen of small means has the 
same interest that his rights be guaranteed and vindicated as the 
rights of the rich man. 

The fourth principle is that the states should be ol^liged to 
submit all their disputes to some judiciary or conciliatory process. 
There should be no more differences among nations considered as 
unable to be settled by some peaceable means. That of course 
excludes war. 

This brings me to a fifth principle which should be introduced 
in international law. It is a very revolutionary one, but in the 
speech of Lloyd George, quoted by Mr. Slayden for a moment, 
he confessed that war is a crime. Now the principle I advocate 
is that war should no more be considered as a legal institution, 
because it is a crime, and should consequently be treated as such. 
This principle is a new one and therefore was not discussed till 
now among professors or experts in international law. Professors 
and experts in international law — I am myself a professor of interna- 
tional law — have always contended that war is a legal process, as 
duel was during centuries, as torture was. Torture as a legal in- 
stitution was admitted not long ago by every state in the world, 
despite all its horrors, as slavery was, as serfdom was; but these 
things: slavery, serfdom, human sacrifice, torture, duel, have gone, 
and the world should now be able to get rid of war as a legal institu- 
tion, as a legal process! 

If that is done, and it can be done, the whole conception of the 
relations between states is changed. The basis on which interna- 
tional law would be established would be completely different, and 
the nearest consequence of such a rule would be to compel the states 
to create an international machinery. 

The international machinery should consist of institutions like 



92 The Annals of the American Academy 

those you have estabhshed in your own United States. They should 
be ahke, but not similar. There should be a law-making body, not 
necessarily a parliament or congress, but a body with legislative 
powers. There should be a law-applying body. In that direction 
more is already done: we have already a Court of Arbitration, and 
in principle the states agreed to create a Supreme Court of the 
World or Court of International Justice, which it is proposed to 
complete by a Council of Conciliation; these three bodies would 
form the judiciary part of the administration of the world. Finally 
there should be not a proper executive, but an administrative body, 
in charge of the general interests of the world; avast compound of 
the already existing offices and unions as the Postal Union, the 
Railroad Union, the Telegraphic Union. The work done and the 
work to be done in behalf of mankind should be systematized so that 
international cooperation in the world should become a part of the 
life of every day in every nation, changing the mind of all peoples by 
bringing them in constant touch one with another and showing that 
their own interests harmonize with the interests of humanity. 



DISARMAMENT AND INTERNATIONAL COURTS PRE- 
REQUISITES TO A DURABLE PEACE 

By James L. Slayden, 
Member of Congress from Texas. 

Four, five, or possibly six years ago I read a great speech by 
the member of the House of Commons for the division of Carnar- 
von, Wales. It was an eloquent plea for arbitration and the settle- 
ment of international disputes by the method of courts, and a 
specially strong and convincing argument for an agreed reduction 
of national armaments. That great democrat and advocate of 
peace is now the Premier of the British Empire. His wonderful 
speech in London recently shows that he holds the same views 
still. I shall refer to them later. 

I am not one of that class of pacifists which believes it possible 
to prevent war entirely, at least not just yet, and refuses to discuss 
it except from the point of view of its absolute and immediate end- 
ing. But I do believe that it is possible, by arrangements between 



Disarmament and iNTERNATioisrAt Courts 93 

governments that now thoroughly appreciate the cost of wars and 
are beginning to understand their stupidity and futihty, to make 
them comparatively harmless. 

Pull the Fangs 

Out in the Southwest I once knew a man who called himself a 
snake merchant. His chief article of trade was that dangerous 
and repulsive reptile, the rattlesnake. He would handle his mer- 
chandise in a way that made the onlooker shiver but he knew, what 
they did not, that he had made the snakes harmless by pulling their 
fangs. Now, that is precisely what I would hke to do to aggressive 
and belhgerent governments that covet the lands and sovereignties 
of other nations. I would pull their fangs by taking away from 
them nearly all the military forces that foolish and confiding people 
have put at the command of kings. Ambitious monarchs can be 
made comparatively harmless by reducing the size of armies so 
much that they wdll cease to be anything more than a police force. 
Then they will serve a useful purpose at home and cease to be a 
menace abroad. 

One soldier to each thousand people in any country is enough 
to keep internal peace in a just government, and if governments 
are not just the sooner they are overturned the better. But if one 
soldier to each thousand isn't enough two surely will be, and inter- 
national agreement should prevent any government from going 
beyond that. 

How It would Have Fared with Belgium 

Suppose the federated German Empire had only controlled an 
army of 75,000 men in 1914 or, taking the larger figure I have sug- 
gested, 150,000, would there have been an invasion of Belgium, 
whose chief offense was that she lay on the highway between Berlin 
and Paris? Would Liege, Louvain, Dinant, Ypres and Rheims 
now be in ruins and their priceless treasures of books, pictures and 
architecture forever lost to the world? Armies of the size I suggest 
could not have done all that mischief, yet they would be large 
enough to keep the criminal classes under control while utterly 
unable to thwart democracy's right to break the shackles of op- 
pression which is always imposed from above by the aid of the 
autocrat's military arm. 



§4 The Annals of the American Academy 

Thomas Jefferson, who Hved in a less democratic era than ours, 
beUeved, and declared his belief, that revolutions were necessary 
once in a generation if the people were not to lose their blood-bought 
liberties. We may not think them necessary as often as Jefferson 
suggested but we will all agree, I assume, that the opportunity to 
assert the right to liberty and independence should not be denied by 
a huge army at the command of an autocrat. The way to peace, 
to a just and durable peace, is through democracy, and it is abso- 
lutely necessary to peace and democracy that the preponderance of 
power should never be taken from the people and given to the 
soldier. My faith in the people and in their supremacy in the 
domain of government has been greatly strengthened by recent 
events in Russia. 

Gratitude to Nicholas, The Czar 

Russia and the world may well spare Nicholas Romanoff from 
the field of political activity, but justice to his memory compels the 
admission that during his reign he did one thing for which he is 
entitled to the gratitude of the whole world, which we now know 
may be drawn into disaster by the machinations of a few men. 

Whether the inspiration of an aroused conscience or the diffi- 
culty of financing military projects caused it we may never know, 
but the great, epochal fact remains that governments began the 
serious consideration of reducing armaments on his motion. It is 
one of three or four good and statesmanhke deeds of an otherwise 
commonplace and inglorious reign. The historian of the future 
may in charity emphasize this great reform that Nicholas proposed 
and give only passing attention to pogroms, Siberian exiles and other 
things that damn the political administration of Russia. If I may 
be permitted indulgence in slang I will say that when Nicholas, 
the last of the autocrats of the House of Romanoff, called the first 
Hague Conference to disarm the nations in the interest of peace he 
"started something." 

Will Governments Consent? 

Can we ever get the consent of governments to a general dis- 
armament? I believe so, and I furthermore believe that never in 
the history of the world has there been such an opportunity for 
this greatest of all reforms as we will see at the close of the war in 
Europe. 



Disarmament and International Courts 95 

The cost of modern war will plead for it and will finally compel 
it. Great Britain is now spending ten million dollars more each 
day in the prosecution of war than the army of the United States 
cost in any one of the twenty-four years from 1875 down to and 
including 1899. 

The belligerent powers of Europe are spending more money 
each day than the average annual cost of the whole government of 
the United States between 1800 and 1861. 

In 1865 the total cost of our government, outside the Post 
Office Department, was $1,295,099,290, and the cost per capita in 
that most expensive year of the Civil War was $37.27. 

Last year when we were at peace with everybody but Pancho 
Villa, and, perhaps, on occasions with Carranza, our taxes per capita 
were nearly fifteen dollars. 

Contrast that with the $4.43 per head paid during Cleveland's 
administration for all expenses outside the Post Office Department 
and contrast it with the $85.00 per head you will have to pay for 
the next year and charge the increased cost to war and excessive 
preparation for war. 

We in America may stand such burdens a few years more but 
Europe cannot. All these vast sums, both in Europe and America, 
must come out of the sweat and toil of the man who works. But 
even that long-suffering class is beginning to think and assert its 
rights; even the patient, long-suffering Mujik has revolted at last. 

A httle while ago, an officer of the United States Navy of high 
rank, a frank and capable man, who was testifying before the Com- 
mittee on Naval Affairs of the House of Representatives, said that 
if the policy of competition in armaments continued it could only 
have one of two endings, bankruptcy or war. 

Mr. Hensley, of Missouri, on another occasion asked Captain 
McKean of the Navy what would be the consequence if two indi- 
viduals "became apprehensive of each other and began to arm them- 
selves," to which the naval officer repHed that it would lead "to 
the hospital or the cemetery." 

Henslej^ then asked him if the same thing would not happen to 
nations under like circumstances. Captain McKean replied that 
society would compel disarmament in the case of individuals and 
that the society of nations might do the same thing as to particular 
nations under such circumstances. 



96 The Annals of the American Academy 

Another naval officer of high rank said that it was the policy 
of our government to be either the first or second naval power in 
the world. I think he really meant that that was the policy our 
naval officers wanted. When reminded of the fact that other na- 
tions might object to our being the first or second naval power of 
the world his reply was "we have the power and the money to pro- 
tect ourselves and I think we could do it." 

What, let me ask you, will become of the rights of small na- 
tions under such a policy? Is it not a return to the rule of the tooth 
and claw and can there be any just peace under such conditions, 
any hope for the small country, however just and peaceful, which 
hasn't the money and power? 

Repudiation a Possibility 

Already there is talk of repudiation in Europe, but not, of 
course, by officials of the contending powers for they are still trying 
to borrow, but by students of the world-wide madness who realize 
that there is a limit to the burdens that men can bear. That out- 
come would be hard on those who have put their earnings into the 
notes of Russia, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the United 
Kingdom, but in the long run it might not be bad for the mass of 
men. If excessive armaments and war credits should both be 
abolished it will lead to a long period of peace. Some people believe 
that it is this threat of repudiation hanging over them that has 
caused the owners of such securities to demand that the taxpayers 
of the United States shall underwrite the war loans of belligerent 
Europe. 

Big Armies Do Not Insure Peace 

The theory that huge military preparation assures peace ex- 
ploded in 1914. At that time Russia, Germany and Austria had 
the greatest armies in the world and they were the first countries to 
enter the war. I don't understand, in view of what has happened, 
how any man can keep a straight face and make that argument. 
Nations are like the men who compose them. Given a hostile 
feeling and weapons and they will use the weapons. It is perfectly 
clear that if we are to have a lasting and just peace after the great 
war the insane poHcy of competitive arming must be abandoned. 
I believe that must have been the President's thought when he used 
the phrase "peace without victory" in his speech to the Senate iri 



Disarmament and International Courts 97 

January. The President knows, as every thoughtful person must 
know, that if either side in the European War should win an over- 
whelming military victoiy its faith in the efficacy of arms in the 
settlement of international disputes will be renewed and strength- 
ened, and that it would not agree to the policy of reduced arma- 
ments. If neither side should have such a victory, the folly and 
futility of war will be plain to the dullest mind. Its very horrors 
and inconclusiveness would illuminate the argument and hasten 
the substitution of the court and board of arbitration for the sword. 

Courts and Arbitration Will Follow 

I am convinced that if we can persuade, or compel, govern- 
ments to reduce their military and naval establishments every other 
step in the plan for a just and lasting peace will follow easily and 
naturally. Heads of governments who are not inclined to quiet 
reasoning when they command great fleets and armies would then 
take a different view. The setting for war is complete when two 
heads of quarrelsome governments are heavily armed, but if either 
realizes that while his army is the best of its size in the world it is 
still not large enough to overrun and destroy a neighbor, he will 
incUne to talk it over and settle differences some other way. 

Abolish overgrown armies and navies and there will at once be 
an opening for the Council of Conciliation, the Court for the Ju- 
dicial Settlement of International Disputes and the Board of Arbitra- 
tion. If we can take away from the heads of governments, from 
the heads of all governments, the power to make war, or to make 
conditions that compel ivar, and take it so far away that they will 
forget that they ever had any connection with such things, the 
people will do the rest. The people, I beheve, may be relied on not 
to condemn themselves to destruction. They will not put them- 
selves into the hell of Verdun or Gallipoli. 

From this you may surmise that I am pleading for democracy, 
and so I am, for I believe that democracy spells peace. 

If the Republic of Russia really has been set up on a firm foun- 
dation, if the people of that country are to have a real voice in dis- 
posing of their own lives and fortunes, the "Bear that walks like a 
man" wdll cease to be a menace to Europe. 

Already the republicans of Russia have spoken a sympathetic 
word to the Poles in whom a century of oppression has not stifled 



98 The Annals of the American Academy 

the hope of independence. For the first time since the Grand 
Duchy of Finland fell victim to the rapacity of the Romanoffs, 
there is a sympathetic feeling in Helsingfors for what is being done 
in Petrograd. 

I do not sympathize with the suggestion that the Russians 
should not try for a republic, that they are not yet ripe for such 
complete freedom. It may be that all the people in the world are 
not yet sufficiently advanced for self-government, but all are ad- 
vanced beyond the need of despotism, all are entitled to have a try 
at free representative government. It is better to have democracy 
with occasional disorder than autocracy with unremitting oppression. 

Evil Consequences of War 

The wars that are begotten by huge military preparations put 
all sorts of financial and social burdens on the people. Modern 
wars, these huge scientific, mechanical wars, mean bankruptcy to 
nations that engage in them. They postpone indefinitely projects 
for the social betterment of the people. They mean inferior houses 
for the family, less vigorous children, thus passing on their miseries 
to the innocent unborn, inferior schools, undernourishing for women 
and children and the physically less fit men who have not been sent 
to the trenches. They mean increasing contributions from the 
earnings of labor to meet interest charges and to prepare for other 
wars that ambitious monarchs look forward to. They engender 
hatred between peoples that holds back civilization and prepares for 
other calamities, for be it remembered that "Wars still other wars 
do breed." They break friendly relations between neighbors in a 
country like ours where the citizens are contributions from all 
branches of the human family. 

If we would not disturb the peace of the world with internal 
dissension we must be tolerant and patient. Good American citi- 
zens who were "Saxon and Norman and Dane," Teuton, Kelt or 
Frank, each with a lingering interest in, and affection for, the coun- 
try of his origin live side by side in our republic. Their diverse 
origin makes it more difficult to keep the peace than among an 
absolutely homogeneous people. The situation calls for a wide 
tolerance, for great wisdom and patience. 

Suspicion of the loyalty of a citizen just because he was born 
in Germany, or is the son of a man who was born in Germany, is 



DiSARAIAMENT AND INTERNATIONAL CoURTS 99 

unworthy the great republic and grossly unjust in nearly every 
case. By unjust suspicions and persecution men of spirit who are 
loyal may be made rebellious in time. All citizens have a right to 
be judged by their previous conduct and character. Suspicion, 
sensationalism and intolerance are the worst features of the war 
psychology and we have it now in an exaggerated form. 

In the American Revolution of 1776 there were many earnest 
supporters of the Colonies who were born in Great Britain. Many 
sons of Englishmen, Scotchmen and Irishmen whose relatives in the 
old country wore the uniform of King George followed Washington 
from the beginning in Massachusetts to the ending at Yorktown. 
We have monuments to the memory of von Steuben, Kosciusko 
and Lafayette all in one small square in Washington. I do not 
doubt for a moment that in the war with Germany many German- 
born men and their sons will loj^ally and effectively support the 
American republic and they ought not to be insulted by unjust 
suspicion or worried by the unthinking who show their patriotism 
in violence. Let us try to protect them from a suspicion that is 
so frequently insulting, and from the nagging and annoyance that 
espionage bills and such un-American legislation will make possible. 

We must live with these people after the war and it will con- 
tribute to the cause of internal and external peace if we will remem- 
ber their embarrassing situation and treat them as Americans should 
be treated. 

May I, in closing, quote two or three sentences from the 
great speech made in London recently by the great, little Welshman, 
now the real head of the British government? Take these words 
of David Lloyd George home with you: 

I am the last man in the world to say that the succor which is 
given from America is not in itself something to rejoice at greatly. 
But I also say that I can see more in the knowledge that America 
is going to win a right to sit at a conference table when the terms of 
peace are discussed. That conference will settle the destiny of 
nations and the course of human life for God knows how many ages. 
It would have been a tragedy, a tragedy for mankind, if America 
had not been heard there and with all her influence and her power. 

I can see peace, not a peace to be a beginning of war, not a 
peace which will be an endless preparation for strife and bloodshed, 
but a real peace. Europe has always lived under the menace of the 
sword. When this war began two thirds of Europe was under 
autocratic rule. Now it is the other way about and democracy 
means peace. 



100 The Annals of the American Academy 

Many strange things have happened in this war, aye, and 
stranger things will come and are coming rapidly. Six weeks ago 
Russia was an autocracy. She now is one of the most advanced 
democracies in the world. 

Today we are waging the most devastating war the world has 
ever seen. Tomorrow, tomorrow, not perhaps distant tomorrows, 
war may be abolished forever from the category of human crimes. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE AMERICAN POL- 
ICY OF ISOLATION IN RELATION TO A JUST 
AND DURABLE PEACE 

By John H. Latan:^, Ph.D., LL.D., 
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 

During the one hundred years following the treaty of Ghent 
the United States engaged in two foreign wars: the Mexican War, 
which lasted from May 13, 1846, to February 2, 1848, and the 
Spanish War, which lasted from April 21 to August 12, 1898. The 
combined length of these two wars was a few days over two years. 
During the same period the entire American continent was singu- 
larly free from wars of importance or of long duration, either be- 
tween American states or between American and European states. 
No other part of the world can show a record at all comparable to 
this. If, therefore, we are in search of bases for a just and durable 
peace, we should examine the public policies of America rather than 
of Europe. 

During this century of comparative peace with other nations 
the foreign policy of the United States has been guided by two great 
principles, the Monroe Doctrine and the policy of political isolation 
or the avoidance of entangling alliances. The Monroe Doctrine 
is a guarantee of the status quo, the only principle on which the peace 
of the world can securely rest. The policy of isolation means the 
absence in time of peace of a,lliances which have been a necessary 
condition to all great wars. If there had been no European alUance 
in July, 1914, and if the several countries, free from the obligations 
which such alliances impose, had been able to choose the course 
dictated by their highest interests, does any one believe that there 
would have been a world war? Is it going too far to assert that the 



The Monroe Doctrine and Durable Peace 101 

future peace of the world depends upon a world-wide acceptance of 
these two American principles: no disturbance of the status quo by 
any one state or group of states for selfish ends, and no permanent 
alliances between states or groups of states? So far, therefore, from 
abandoning the Monroe Doctrine and our historic policy of avoiding 
entangling alliances, President Wilson proposed in his address to 
the Senate on Januarj^ 22, 1917, that these two American policies 
should be internationalized and given world-wide application. In 
liolding out the expectation that the United States would join the 
other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing a permanent 
peace he said : 

I am proposing, as it were, that, the nations should with one accord adopt the 
doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world: that no nation should 
seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people 
should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, un- 
hindered, unthreatened, imafraid, the little along with the great and powerful. 

I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which 
would draw them into compet it ions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and 
selfish rivalry, and disturb then- own affairs with influences intruded from without. 
There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the 
same sense and with the same pur{)ose all act in the conmion interest and are free 
to live their own lives under a common protection. 

The President has here stated, it seems to me, the two essential 
principles on which the future peace of the world must rest. He has 
clothed them in American habiliments so as to avoid the appearance 
of breaking too violently with the traditions of the past. Never- 
theless the attempt to internationahze these two principles of our 
foreign policy involves the risk of sacrificing them altogether, and 
many Americans will undoubtedly oppose what will be considered 
an idealistic effort to extend to the rest of the world the benefits of 
a policy which hitherto we have enjoyed exclusively. 

On the contrary I am convinced as the result of the changes of 
the last twenty years that the time is at hand when we must either 
abandon the Monroe Doctrine altogether, or resort to an alliance 
to maintain it, or to some form of world federation to extend it. 
For nearly a century we have upheld without an army, and until 
recently without a large navy, a policy which has been described as 
an impertinence to Latin America and a standing defiance to 
Europe. Has the Monroe Doctrine rested on moral force alone, 
or, if not, by what magic have we defended it so effectively against 



102 The Annals of the American Academy 

all the world without the exercise of physical force? Few Ameri- 
cans have ever considered this question. Notwithstanding the 
many discussions of the Monroe Doctrine that we have had in recent 
years, this phase of the subject has been largely neglected. As a 
matter of fact the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine in the past 
has been due not to our own might, but wholly to the balance of 
power in Europe. Some European power would long ago have 
come in and called our bluff, that is, made us give up the doctrine 
or fight for it, had it not been for the well-grounded fear that some 
other European power would start an attack in the rear. Every 
time that the Monroe Doctrine has been called in question condi- 
tions outside of America have determined the issue. Let us review 
briefly some of these instances. 

In the first place, the original declaration of President Monroe 
would have had httle effect, but for the known attitude of England 
and the strength of her navy. The international situation at that 
time was a very interesting one. When Napoleon overthrew the 
Spanish monarchy in 1808 and placed his brother Joseph on the 
throne, the colonies of Spain refused to recognize the new sovereign 
and, as the combined fleets of France and Spain had been destroyed 
by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Napoleon and Joseph 
were unable to extend their authority over Spanish America. The 
Spanish colonies thus drifted into independence in spite of them- 
selves. Released from an unreasonable and oppressive colonial 
system they set up provisional governments, and immediately 
threw their ports open to English and American vessels. An ex- 
tensive trade soon sprang up, and with English and American goods 
came English and American ideas. Spain's colonies thus passed 
through a period of enlightenment which shaped their future action. 
When, after the overthrow of Napoleon, their lawful sovereign 
Ferdinand VII was restored to his throne, he failed to realize the 
changes that had taken place and undertook to refasten on the 
colonies the old colonial system and to shut out all foreign commerce. 
The colonies naturally resisted and thus began the war of inde- 
pendence. By 1822 Spanish authority had been everywhere over- 
thrown, and the United States formally recognized the independence 
of the Spanish-American republics. 

Meanwhile the powers of Europe had held a series of con- 
gresses, beginning with that of Vienna, for the purpose of undoing 



The Monroe Doctrine and Durable Peace 103 

the work of Napoleon, restoring as far as possible the old order, and 
suppressing new attempts at revolution in Piedmont, Naples and 
Spain. At Verona in 1822 they decided to send a French army into 
Spain for the purpose of suppressing the new constitution and 
restoring Ferdinand to absolute power. Against this intervention 
in the internal affairs of Spain, Wellington, who represented England 
at the conference, protested, and when his protest was not heeded 
he formally withdrew. This marked the final withdrawal of Eng- 
land from the grand alliance which had overthrown Napoleon. 
The British government considered the question of opposing by 
force the French invasion of Spain, but finally decided not to act. 
By the summer of 1823 the Spanish constitutionalists were over- 
thrown and Ferdinand was restored to absolute power. Absolutism 
reigned once more in western Europe. 

The reactionary powers, which constituted the so-called Holy 
Alliance, felt, however, that their work was incomplete so long as 
Spain's colonies remained unsubdued. Thej^ decided, therefore, 
to hold a conference in Paris to consider the question of assisting 
Spain to recover her revolted provinces. It was at this crisis 
that George Canning, the British foreign secretary, called into con- 
ference Dr. Richard Rush, the American minister at London, and 
proposed that England and the United States form an alliance to 
prevent the proposed intervention of the Holy Allies in Spanish 
America. England's interest in the matter was mainly commercial; 
ours mainly political. After mature deliberation President IMonroe 
and his cabinet wisely decided that, in view of the fact that the 
attitude of England was known to the powers of Europe, an in- 
dependent declaration on the part of the United States would have 
all the effect of an alliance without any of its embarrassing features. 
He, therefore, delivered in his annual message to Congress a broad- 
side declaration against European intervention in America, which 
did not except even England. Canning was much chagrined. He 
had proposed an Anglo-American alliance, and in reply the United 
States made a declaration which he had the foresight to see might 
be used against England itself in the future. Furthermore the 
attitude of the British government was known only to the chan- 
celleries of Europe, while Monroe's declaration was made to the 
world at large. When, therefore, the European powers dropped the 
project of intervention in America the United States got all the 



104 The Annals of the American Academy 

credit. A few months later England formally recognized the in- 
dependence of the Spanish-American republics, and Canning made 
his famous boast on the floor of the House of Commons that he had 
''called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the 
old." 

The most serious strain to which the Monroe Doctrine was 
ever subjected was the attempt of Louis Napoleon during the Amer- 
ican Civil War to establish the empire of Maximilian in Mexico 
under French auspices. He was clever enough to induce England 
and Spain to go in with him in 1861 for the avowed purpose of col- 
lecting the claims of their subjects against the government of 
Mexico. Before the joint intervention had gone very far, however, 
these two powers became convinced that Napoleon had ulterior 
designs and withdrew their forces. Napoleon's Mexican venture 
was deliberately calculated on the success of the Southern Con- 
federacy. Hence, his friendly relations with the Confederate com- 
missioners and the talk of an alliance between the Confederacy 
and Maximilian backed by the power of France. Against each 
successive step taken by France in Mexico, Mr. Seward, Lincoln's 
secretary of state, protested. As the Civil War drew to a successful 
conclusion his protests became more and more emphatic. Finally, 
in the spring of 1866, the United States government began massing 
troops on the Mexican border and Mr. Seward sent what was 
practically an ultimatum to the French Emperor; he requested to 
know when the long promised withdrawal of the French troops 
would take place. Napoleon replied, fixing the dates for their 
withdrawal in three separate detachments. 

American historians have usually attributed Napoleon's 
backdown to Seward's diplomacy supported by the military power 
of the United States, which was, of course, greater at that time than 
at any other time in our history. All this undoubtedly had its 
effect on Napoleon's mind, but I am convinced that conditions in 
Europe just at that particular moment had an even greater influence 
in causing him to abandon his Mexican scheme. Within a few 
days of the receipt of Seward's ultimatum Napoleon was informed 
of Bismarck's determination to force a war with Austria over the 
Schleswig-Holstein controversy. Napoleon realized that the ter- 
ritorial aggrandizement of Prussia, without any corresponding 
gains by France, would be a serious blow to his prestige and in fact 



The Monroe Doctrine and Durable Peace 105 

endanger his throne. He at once entered upon a long and hazardous 
diplomatic game in which Bismarck outplayed him and eventually- 
forced him into war. In order to have a free hand to meet the 
European situation he decided to yield to the American demands. 
As the European situation developed he decided to withdraw his 
troops before the dates agreed upon and to leave Maximilian to his 
fate. Thus the Monroe Doctrine was vindicated! 

Let us take next President Cleveland's intervention in the 
Venezuelan boundary dispute. Here surely was a clear and spec- 
tacular vindication of the Monroe Doctrine which no one can dis- 
count. Let us briefly examine the facts. Some 30,000 square miles 
of territory on the border of Venezuela and British Ckiiana were in 
dispute. Venezuela, a weak and helpless state, had offered to sub- 
mit the question to arbitration. Great Britain, powerful and over- 
bearing, refused. After a long correspondence, ably conducted by 
Secretary Olney, had failed to move the British government, 
President Cleveland decided to intervene. In a message to Congress 
in December, 1896, President Cleveland reviewed the controversy 
at length, declared that the acquisition of territory in America on 
the part of a European power through the arbitrary advance of a 
boundary Une was a clear violation of the Monroe Doctrine, and 
asked Congress for an appropriation to pay the expenses of a com- 
mission which he proposed to appoint for the purpose of determining 
the true boundary, which he said it would then be our duty to up- 
hold. Lest there should be any misunderstanding as to his inten- 
tions he solehmly added: "In making these recommendations I am 
fully alive to the responsibility incurred and keenly realize all the 
consequences that may follow." Congress promptly voted the ap- 
pi'opriation. 

Here was a bold and unqualified defiance of England. No one 
before had ever trod so roughly on the British lion's tail with im- 
punity. The English-speaking public on both sides of the Atlantic 
was stunned and amazed. Outside of diplomatic circles few persons 
were aware that any subject of controversy between the two coun- 
tries existed, and no one had any idea that it was of a serious nature. 
Suddenly the two nations found themselves on the point of war. 
After the first outburst of indignation, the storm passed; and before 
the American boundary commission could make its report England 
signed an arbitration agreement with Venezuela. Some persons 



106 The Annals of the American Academy 

after looking in vain for an explanation have concluded that Lord 
Salisbury's failure to deal more seriously with Mr. Cleveland's 
affront to the British government was due to his sense of humor. 

But here again the true explanation is to be found in events 
that were happening in other quarters of the globe. Cleveland's 
Venezuelan message was sent to Congress on December 17. At 
the end of the year came Dr. Jameson's raid into the Transvaal 
and on the third of January the German Kaiser sent his famous 
telegram of congratulation to Paul Kruger. The wrath of England 
was suddenly diverted from America to Germany, and Lord Salisbury 
avoided a rupture with the United States over a matter which after 
all was not of such serious moment to England in order to be free to 
deal with a question involving much greater interests in South Africa. 
The Monroe Doctrine was none the less effectively vindicated. 

In 1902 Germany made a carefully planned and determined 
effort to test out the Monroe Doctrine and see whether we would 
fight for it. You will remember that in that year Germany, Eng- 
land, and Italy made a naval demonstration against Venezuela for 
the purpose of forcing her to recognize as valid certain claims of their 
citizens. How England was led into the trap is still a mystery, but 
the Kaiser thought that he had her fixed, that if England once 
started in with him she could not turn against him. But he had 
evidently not profited by the experience of Napoleon III in 1861. 
Through the mediation of Herbert Bowen, the American minister, 
Venezuela agreed to recognize in principle the claims of the foreign 
powers and to arbitrate the amount. England and Italy accepted 
this offer and withdrew their squadrons. Germany, however, re- 
mained for a time obdurate. This much was known at the time. 

A rather sensational account of what followed next has re- 
cently been made public in Thayer's Life and Letters of John Hay. 
Into the merits of the controversy that arose over Thayer's state- 
ment of the Roosevelt-Holleben interview it is not necessary to enter. 
The significant fact, that Germany withdrew from Venezuela under 
pressure, is, I am satisfied, established. Admiral Dewey stated 
publicly that the entire American fleet was assembled at the time 
under his command in Porto Rican waters ready to move at a 
moment's notice. Why did Germany back down from her posi- 
tion? Her navy was supposed to be at least as powerful as ours. 
The reason why the Kaiser concluded not to measure strength with 



The Monroe Doctrine and Durable Peace 107 

the Umted States was that England had accepted arbitration and 
withdrawn her support and he did not dare attack the United States 
with the British navy in his rear. Again the nicely adjusted Euro- 
pean balance prevented the Monroe Doctrine from being put to the 
test of actual war. 

It must be abundantly evident to all that our historic policy 
of isolation has been rendered possible only by the existence of 
the balance of power in Europe. We have never been too weak 
to tip the scales. But in recent years a new element has entered 
into the international situation and that element is the naval and 
military power of Japan. Formerly we had the European balance 
plus the United States. Recently we have had the European 
balance plus the United States plus Japan. Scarcely had the 
United States acquired Hawaii and the Philippines and committed 
itself to the open door policy in China when Japan emerged vic- 
torious from the war with Russia as a full-fledged world power 
ready to contest with us supremacy in the Pacific. American 
diplomacy, hitherto limited in its aims to the American continent, 
was suddenly confronted with complex problems which were world- 
wide in their ramifications. The Anglo-Japanese alHance has been 
in effect a guarantee of peace between Japan and the United States, 
for England would never consent to back Japan in a war with us. 
But the Anglo-Japanese alliance appears to be doomed. Japan 
and Russia have recently formed an alliance, the exact terms of 
which have not been made public, but which undoubtedly aims at 
the further exploitation of Manchuria and the defeat of the open door 
policy in a large part of China. If the new Russo-Japanese alliance 
supplants the older alliance with England, as now seems likely, our 
position in the Pacific will be very seriously weakened. The Japanese 
shift from England to Russia will naturally force England and the 
United States into closer accord. How far the Russian revolution 
will weaken the Russo-Japanese alliance cannot yet be foreseen. 

If the old system of alliances and balances of power is to prevail 
after the war, we shall have not a revival of the old European 
balance, but a new world balance, England, France, and the United 
States forming the basis of one group, Russia and Japan of the other, 
with Germany for the time being isolated, like France after the 
overthrow of Napoleon. Such a condition would mean the indefi- 
nite continuance of large armaments, secret diplomacy, and endless 



108 The Annals of the American Academy 

intrigue. The only other possibility is that before the war ends 
Germany will weld the opposing powers into such a firm league that 
peace will not dissolve it but rather transform it into some form 
of permanent world federation. This is the hope of mankind, and 
the more closely we ally ourselves with England, France, and 
democratic Russia, the more surely will this dream of a federation 
of the world become a reality. 

It is useless to advocate a strict adherence to the traditions of 
the fathers. The old order has already passed away, though some 
of our representatives in the halls of Congress are reluctant to recog- 
nize the fact. The United States stands already committed to 
world-wide democracy and internationalism. Hitherto we have 
stood defensively for these principles and we have been willing to 
fight for them only in America. We are now to fight for their 
universal recognition. President Monroe's declaration in favor of 
guaranteeing to free states the right of self-development will be 
given a world-wide apphcation, and the American policy of avoid- 
ing entangling alliances will become the cornerstone of the new 
league. On no other basis can we go into a league to enforce peace. 
We must not be the buffer between alhances and ententes. The 
other states must go into the league on the same basis that we go in 
on, that is, without any treaty obligations to any other power or 
group of powers within the league. Both the Articles of Confedera- 
tion and the Constitution of the United States provided that no state 
should enter into any alliances. The adoption by all the great powers 
of the American poUcy of isolation should be the first step toward 
a League to Enforce Peace or any sort of world-confederation. 

We may not at first be able to prevent ententes, but we can and 
should prohibit alliances. The alliance has always been the chief 
weapon of autocracy. Democracies are going to decide issues as 
they arise on their merits and not tie their hands in advance. No 
government can take away from a democracy its right in an emer- 
gency to declare for war or peace. Even the British government in 
July, 1914, could give no definite guarantees as to what course 
England would pursue in the event of war between Germany and 
France. 

After the war, then, our choice lies between a world balance of 
power based on two great alhances, in one of which we must take 
our place, or some form of world confederation; in other words. 



The Monroe Doctrine and Durable Peace 109 

between two leagues or one. Can any one have any doubt as to 
which system is preferable? The one means militarism and the 
economic burden of even larger armaments than the world has yet 
seen; the other means international democracy, responsible dip- 
lomacy, and, eventually, a just and durable peace. 



TWO EVENTS THAT PRESAGE A DURABLE PEACE 

By Oscar S. Straus, 
Chairman, Public Service Commission, New York. 

One naturally asks: Why discuss the problems of a durable 
peace at this stage? Why draw plans for the rebuilding of the 
international household when the fire is still burning, and we do 
not quite yet know how extensive the devastation will be? 

Such a discussion has great value, none the less, because it 
educates our own mind. It educates the minds of the American 
people. It prepares us for that larger world view which we must 
have in order to take our proper share in the reconstruction of the 
world. As the President has said, with such great wisdom, we 
are willing to contribute the Monroe Doctrine to this world recon- 
struction in order that there may be an international Monroe Doc- 
trine. 

To do that, we need to enlarge our views, we need education 
in this country for international mindedness. Most of us, I think, 
have changed our views considerably since this war began. Many 
of our wise pacifists have developed into belligerent pacifists. I 
confess I belong to that school myself. Before this war began, the 
proposition presented itseK in the glaring phrase, "Utopia or hell!" 
Can you blame us for choosing Utopia? We did not realize that 
we had to wade through the jaws of hell to reach Utopia. Amer- 
ica is ready to march through hell to secure democratic freedom 
and the permanent peace of the world, founded upon law and 
justice. 

When the German Chancellor sought to justify the invasion 
of Belgium by characterizing the solemn international engagement 
for the neutralization of Belgium as a "scrap of paper," the phrase 
was new and expressive but the act itself was old. It was a glaring 
and concrete translation of the Machiavellian doctrine of state, 
which some of the leading German philosophers and militarists, 
notably Treitschke and Bernhardi, had been preaching for a genera- 
tion, that might makes right and that when the highest interests 

110 



Two Events that Presage Durable Peace 111 

of a state, as interpreted by itself, came in conflict with the ac- 
cepted principles of international right, that those interests must 
prevail, thus making of international right a "scrap of paper." 

The Berlin Congress of 1878, which met after the Turko- 
Russian War to prevent the threatening European War, was 
attended by the foremost statesmen of the great powers to adjust 
international differences and to create new Balkan states out of 
principalities under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. The 
condition upon which these new states were constituted and recog- 
nized — notably Rumania, Bulgaria, and Serbia — ^was that under 
the new governments these states should grant to all of their inhabi- 
tants equality of rights, civil and religious. 

The ink upon the charter which transformed the principalities 
of Wallachia and Moldavia into the independent state of Rumania 
was scarcely dry when that kingdom violated the basic conditions 
of its foundation by not only denying equal rights to her Jewish 
population, but b}'^ oppressing them in body and soul under the 
most cruel and barbaric restrictions, so that thousands of them 
were forced to flee and many of them sought refuge in this and other 
countries. Other violations soon followed. Bulgaria attached to 
herself eastern Rumelia. A few j^ears later Austria ruthlessly 
violated the Treaty of Berlin by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
This violation directl}'' resulted in the tragedy at Sei'ajebo when the 
Crown Prince and Princess of Austria were murdered. Out of this 
last violation the "scraps of paper" which tore up the Berlin Treaty 
lit the flame that directly produced this world war. 

Prussian mihtarism on its side made a "scrap of paper" of her 
most solemn international engagements and caused the march of 
the mighty armies of Germany through Belgium, working havoc and 
ruin, violating every principle not only of peace but of war. Civili- 
zation was stunned and the allied nations, unprepared as they 
were, were compelled to come to the rescue. 

Our country was slow and unwilling to believe that a people so 
enlightened as the Germans, who were in the vanguard in science 
and culture, would justify this violation and cruel breach of inter- 
national faith on the part of their rulers and their militaristic estab- 
lishment. But, alas, it soon became evident that the philosophies 
of their Treitschkes and Bernhardis, which had dethroned right- 
eousness and justice, had eaten into the hearts and corrupted the 



112 The Annals of the American Academy 

souls of the dominant classes in Germany. The American people, 
thoroughly imbued with the ideals of the fathers of our republic 
and with the doctrine of Monroe defining our continental policy, to 
hold aloof from the affairs of European states, were slow to recog- 
nize the real issues of the war, which involve the basic principles 
of civilization and the existence of free government throughout the 
world. When Germany began her submarine blockade and sunk 
the Lusitania and scores of other merchant ships, we were at last 
compelled to recognize that our rights and the rights of other neutral 
nations on land and sea, which had been built up through the pro- 
cess of ages by the gradual advance of civilization, were with shock- 
ing ruthlessness and outrageousness being violated with increasing 
horror by Germany. 

Our government was patient and long enduring. With every 
effort to maintain and safeguard our rights as a neutral nation, 
German f rightfulness projected us into this war. President Wilson 
clearly and cogently set forth all of this in his memorable address to 
Congress in a state paper which will rank among the great docu- 
ments of the history of civilization giving the reasons which forced 
America to take up arms to uphold civilization, to ''spend her blood 
and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happi- 
ness and the peace which she has treasured." 

He further stated: "A steadfast concert for peace can never be 
maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No 
autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or 
observe its covenants." The President in this memorable passage 
expounds an historical and clarifying truth: why in the past the 
concerted efforts on the part of nations to maintain a durable 
peace have invariably failed. 

I refer to these circumstances, so recently transpired and which 
are fresh in our minds, in order to call more specific attention to 
the problems of a durable peace. Those problems have been not 
only exposed but clarified by the two important events which have 
within the past few weeks taken place; namely, the dethronement 
of Czardom with the establishment of free government in Russia, 
and the entrance of the United States into the world war to uphold 
free government. 

Autocracies are necessarily militaristic. They have their 
birth in might and are maintained by might. Democracies have 



Durable Peace between Germany and England 113 

their birth to secure equahty of rights and therefore must rest on 
justice. With the success of the Alhes it is not only fair to presume, 
but most probable, that there will be no menacing autocratic 
powers after the termination of the present war. The democratic 
nations will be preponderant and they will have learned the lesson 
to be vigilant, so that for the first time in history the leading powers 
of the world being democratic will be privileged to enter into a 
partnership that will give security, under a league of democracies, 
for the perpetuation of freedom and the equal rights of all its con- 
stituents, great and small. Under the domination of autocratic 
nations the international relationship of the world was in an anar- 
chistic state. But under the league of democratic nations the 
international relationship of the world can and doubtless will be 
secured upon the broad and lasting foundation of international 
justice. 



A BASIS FOR A DURABLE PEACE BETWEEN GERMANY 
AND ENGLAND 

By William C. Bullitt, 

Philadelphia. 

I shall not attempt to deal with the problems of durable peace 
in general but shall try to concentrate attention on one of those 
zones of hostility and hatred in which a conflagration is likely to 
arise and to wreck a durable peace after it has apparently been 
made. 

There are, of course, many such zones in the world. There is 
the zone in the Pacific where the interests of the United States and 
Japan conflict. There is the zone in the Balkans where the inter- 
ests of Russia and Austria conflict; but I wish to call your attention 
to the zone in the North Sea, where the hatred of Germany and 
England concentrates. And I shall try to explain the source of that 
hatred and a method by which it may be eliminated. 

I do not think that the hostility of Germany and England 
springs primarily from commercial and industrial rivalry. I do 
not think that England's hatred of Germany springs primarily 
from her wrath at the violation of Belgium and the atrocities com- 



114 The Annals of the American Academy 

mitted in Belgium and France. I do not think it springs from envy 
of the growth of Germany's power in the past decade. I do not 
think that Germany's hatred of England springs primarily from 
envy of the vast British Colonial Empire or from the belief which is 
widespread in Germany, unbelievable as it may seem on this side of 
the water, that England started and organized the present war. 

None of these things, to my mind, is at the bottom of the 
hostility between Germany and England. It lies much deeper; 
in the thing which is usually at the bottom of a great hatred — 
fear. Fear on the part of Germany, that the British fleet will 
starve her to death; fear, on the part of England, that the German 
submarines will starve her to death. 

How legitimate are these fears is shown vividly by the condi- 
tion of affairs in both those countries today — Germany on the verge 
of starvation; England afraid that in six months, if the submarine 
campaign goes on, she will be on the verge of starvation. But 
these fears are not simply things of today. They are inherent in 
the economic life and geographical position of those two great 
industrial nations, cooped together in the same corner of Europe. 

Germany, today, scarcely less than England, is dependent upon 
the sea for her Kfe. She has ceased to produce enough food to sup- 
port her people. She may be able to live through the present war 
with closed frontiers, but her agriculture has already been raised to a 
verj'' high state of development. It is not susceptible of much 
greater development, and with her normal increase of population 
in ten years she will be utterly unable to live with closed frontiers. 
Her life will be in the gun muzzles of the British fleet. Moreover, 
she earns her livelihood largely by importing raw materials, turning 
them into finished products, and exporting the finished products, 
and for this entire process she must have security on the sea. Fur- 
thermore, the fear that she will be cut off bj;- the British fleet from 
her supplies of food and raw products is kept constantly in front of 
her by the fact that every German ship that goes to the ocean must 
pass by the door of England. Her ships can reach the open ocean 
only by way of the Channel or the North Sea, which is in truth but 
another channel, varying from three to four hundred miles in width, 
which can be controlled almost as easily by the fleet based on the 
Orkneys as the Channel is controlled by the fleet based on Ports- 
mouth. 



Durable Peace between Germany and England 115 

I don't think you can realize unless you have gone to bed 
hungry in Berhn during the war, how intensely every class in Ger- 
many, from the top of the Foreign Office to the end of the minority 
Socialist party, is determined that in some way there must come out 
of this war something which will eliminate the danger of being cut 
off from overseas supplies. 

The German Conservatives have their solution. They say, 
"All we have to do is to build a bigger fleet than England or simply 
destroy England altogether." Fortunately, that is more easily 
dreamed than accomplished. For until England is willing to com- 
mit suicide, she will retain her present naval supremacy. She 
lives partly on her banking, to be sure, but vitally on the earnings of 
her shipping, on her imports of raw products, on her exports of 
finished products. Furthermore, her relationship with her colonies 
imposes on her the obligation of defending them, and this she ac- 
complishes, not by maintaining fleets in their waters, but by a con- 
centration of force in the North Sea, wliich is at once the base of 
defense and attack for the whole world. 

But this very supremacy in the North Sea, which England 
must maintain, means a perpetual latent control of German com- 
merce. This is the vicious circle of fear which produces the hatred 
and enmity between England and Germany. So long as the fleets 
of each threaten the merchantmen of the other, so long will there be 
fear and hatred and war between them. 

The President of the United States perceived this a long time 
ago, and in January, 1915, in order to attempt to reconcile Germany 
and England, he sent an emissary to both those countries to propose 
what I consider one of the wisest plans that has ever been put for- 
ward by the great man, for I believe he, who is our President, is a 
great man. 

The emissary of the Presid6nt was ordered to propose that 
Germany and England and all the other nations in the world should 
agree that even in time of war, all merchantmen, both belligerent 
and neutral, should be unhindered in their passage except when 
carrying contraband, and that contraband should be confined 
strictly to munitions of war. This would mean that even in time of 
war the merchantmen of England and Germany would come un- 
hindered into port, that there would be no starvation of civihan 
populations, that there would be no tlu-eat of such starvation. 



116 The Annals of the American Academy 

And I believe that it would mean that the fear which is at the bot- 
tom of the hostility between those nations would be eliminated and 
that in time, perhaps a decade or two, their mutual interest in the 
peaceful development of the undeveloped portions of the earth 
would lead to their cooperation and ultimately to their friendship. 

The leaders of the German army and navy and of the Con- 
servative parties met the President's proposal with a most em- 
phatic "No!" They said, "We will not give up our great offensive 
weapon, the submarine, by which some day we shall be able to 
starve England into submission." But on the other hand, the 
Socialists, the Radicals, and Von Jagow, who was at that time the 
head of the Foreign Office, assented to the President's proposal. 
They said, "We are willing to agree to give up our weapon of of- 
fense if we can make sure that we shall never have to suffer again 
the food shortage which is sucking the blood of our children, our 
wives and our parents." And although these men are not in 
control of Germany today, there has been every indication in the 
past few months that they will be in control of Germany when the 
war closes, and I believe that in the peace conference Germany will 
stand firmly behind the President's proposal. 

When the President's emissary reached England, he met al- 
most exactly the same reception as in Germany. The Conserva- 
tives said, "No, never! We will never give up the means by which 
we killed Napoleon, by which we are killing Germany today. We 
will never give up the commercial blockade!" But the labor 
leaders, the Socialists, and particularly the group of Liberals led 
by Lord Loreburn, accepted the suggestion, and Sir Edward Grey 
himself was inclined very strongly in that direction. Then the 
sinking of the Lusitania killed all hope of immediate reconcilement 
between Germany and England; and the subsequent career of the 
President's proposal I have not time to trace. 

But the fact is that when the peace conference comes, the 
President's proposal will again be pushed by the representative of 
the United States. And I believe that England can be brought to 
back tliis proposal, although the sentiment there today, I imagine, 
would be against it. I believe that she will accept it ultimately 
for the reason that the submarine in the next six months will bring 
home to her what it means to fear starvation, what it means to be 
afraid that not only yourself, but also your children and your 
parents will not have food. 



DuRABLjB Peace between G'ermany and England 117 

Furthermore, it has come to be generally recognized in the 
British Foreign Office, that England has been able to carry out her 
blockade of Germany, not merely because of her fleet, but also 
because we have been willing to acquiesce in that blockade because 
we beUeve, on the whole, that her cause has been just and that her 
triumph will be to the interest of the whole world. Furthermore, 
England knows that the submarine is still a relatively undeveloped 
weapon, and that no one can tell how fatal to merchant shipping 
the super-submarine of the future may become. 

I therefore believe, that if the President has the united support 
of America on this proposition, it will go through, particularly in 
view of a recent addition wliich the government has made to it. 
The addition is this: that although the right to stop merchantmen 
in time of war should be taken away from any individual state, it 
should be reserved to all the nations of the world acting collectively 
through the League to Enforce Peace. In other words, the league 
would carry the pistol which would 'be denied to any individual 
state. This addition will remove the cliief objection of the British 
Conservatives; which is that the German army, if this plan should 
be adopted, would dictate the course of events in Europe; for the 
League to Enforce Peace would hold in its hands a counterpoise 
to balance the power of the German army. 

It is, I believe, the duty of all Americans who are interested 
in a durable peace to back the President in this proposal, because 
I see no other way whereby the hatred between Germany and Eng- 
land can be abohshed, and unless that hatred can be done away with, 
unless the roots of it can be cut, while the League to Enforce Peace 
may prolong peace, it will never establish a peace which can be 
considered durable. 

Furthermore, if this proposal should be adopted, if the starva- 
tion of civilian populations should be taken out of war, a great step 
forward will have been made in the establishment of decent inter- 
national mores. And after all, we are entering this war for one 
purpose and one only — that better international mores may be 
established on the earth. 



118 The Annals of the American Academy 



THE DISPOSITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE 

By Talcott Williams, 
Columbia University, New York City. 

Permanent and universal peace, for which the world yearns 
and today travails in agony, can only come with permanent and 
universal righteousness. The vexed questions of the hour can 
only reach a final settlement as they are settled in justice. The 
issues involved in Constantinople and its disposition are difficult. 
So far, in modern history, they have been insuperable, because they 
are involved in a larger issue which no nation, large or small, has 
yet been willing to face on any one definite principle, framed in 
justice and applied with impartiality. The question of Constan- 
tinople is not, fundamentally, the disposition of a city, but the 
disposition of two waterways connecting open seas. 

On the open seas, the nations are agreed in demanding an equal 
freedom and equal security for neutrals, or were until the use of the 
submarine and the new application of the old doctrine of the con- 
tinuous voyage, one by Germany and the other by Great Britain, 
have raised disputed questions. In peace and in war, however, 
international law and the nations are agreed on the general princi- 
ple and constant policy which makes the open sea free to all, open 
to all, and protected by all, though the major share of their pro- 
tection has been extended by the English and American navies. 
English justice has, to take modern times, hung more pirates than 
all the rest of the world put together. American courts come next. 
Both navies have together cleared the seas of piracy, and of claims 
like that of Spain to broad realms in the Spanish main. The ships 
of all lands have profited by their work. 

On straits and ways from sea to sea, the world has no such 
agreements and no common concern or uniform principle. Once 
all straits were owned and held at a price for passage. Denmark 
claimed the Skagerack, and England the Channel with an assertion 
of supremacy over all the Seven Seas about the British Isles. Even 
a century ago, Barbary pirates held the Straits of Gibraltar, the 
heirs of long generations of ocean pirates from the red-flagged Phoe- 
nician traders 3,000 years ago, carrying on sail and prow the open 



Disposition of Constantinople 119 

hand of Astarte. Her emblem survived to our own recent day in 
the marauding flags of the Mediterranean. It had its final western 
legacy in the death's head of the "Jolly Roger," for the mark of 
the Semitic goddess guarded both the dead and the living. 

The Barbarj'- pirate is gone after centuries in which his ravages 
were early recorded on Latin inscriptions on Spanish coasts and in 
Spanish towns in the days of the Antonines, and in the records of 
our own sea-faring churches on Cape Cod, and the New England 
coast at the close of the eighteenth century. The Dane no longer 
demands Danegeld and the English Channel had become as free 
as the oceans and seas about, until the submarine came to make 
or to mar international law as the wages of battle may at last decide. 
The control of the straits will remain undecided, and the peace of 
the waters will be limited and strained by their work and put to 
naught at every channel from sea to sea or from ocean to ocean, 
until the wise rule and principle is adopted that straits, natural 
or artificial, connecting seas must be as free to peaceful trade as 
the seas they join and as foref ended to belligerents as any neutral 
ocean waters. 

This principle will be a shock to many, particularly to the two 
nations, England and America, who first asserted and created the 
peace of the seas from Drake to Decatur and have, at the cost of 
more than one war, asserted neutral rights on the high seas in the 
presence of belligerent flags. None the less, to the principle that 
straits and connecting waterways should be free as the seas to the 
world's mercantile marine, and no more closed to belligerent flags 
than neutral harbors, the world's practice steadily tends. The 
Ottoman Empire, it is often forgotten, adopted this principle and 
practice when European governments were asserting proprietary 
rights over every strait and channel which joined the world's wide 
waters from sea to ocean. Before the end of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the Sublime Porte laid down the doctrine that the Dardanelles 
and the Bosphorus should always be open to the merchantmen of 
all countries and always closed to the man-of-w^ar of all ensigns. 
English, French and Russian mercantile flags were flapping and 
turning as the vessels that carried them were tacking in the narrow 
beats of these straits at the very time when the naval ensigns of 
these three lands were wiping out the last strong fleet of the Sultan 
in 1827 at Navarino, when the French were depriving the Ottoman 



120 The Annals of the American Academy 

Empire of the territorial rights in Algeria and Russia crushing the 
last remnant of the Turkish fleet in Sinope in 1852, and so on, up 
and down in a period of three centuries, this immunity for mer- 
cantile flags survived in the Dardanelles and Bosphorus wide-spread 
hostilities, until these acts led to a declaration of war. At this, 
as at many other points of international practice, the Sublime Porte 
under a long succession of Sultans, in its days of triumph and of 
defeat from Mohammed the Conqueror (El Ghasi) to Mohammed 
V, in the twentieth century, has shown a forbearance, a wise toler- 
ance, a readiness to give all creeds protection to which the lamenta- 
ble and cruel massacres of one period and another, including our 
own, should not lead us to be blind in surveying the past or fore- 
seeing the future. 

This ancient principle was affirmed by England in the treaty 
negotiated by the dauntless Stratford de Radcliffe. Still in early 
manhood, in 1809, it was repeated by England, Austria and Prussia 
in the treaty of 1840, and France agreed to it in 1841. The wisdom 
of this practice was affirmed at every stage of this question in the 
Congress of Paris in 1856, the Convention of London in 1870, and 
in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. At every stage since, up to the 
present war, this has been the accepted doctrine. But in war it 
has always silently disappeared as in the past. The freedom of 
straits has never anywhere rested on the same basis as the free- 
dom of the seas. 

The freedom of the seas has been secured, because there the 
interests of all states are equal. The freedom of straits has not 
been secured because in them, the interests of states are not equal. 
Each country has followed its self-interest. The world's leading 
straits are in the hands of England and America. England holds 
the two gates of the Mediterranean, Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. 
The United States holds the Panama Canal. Each country has 
talked the neutrality of other straits and acted and enacted control 
of its own. Gibraltar was seized July 24, 1704, by a coup de main 
when England had not declared war on Spain, though hostilities 
over the Spanish succession had begun in Flanders with France. 
The attacking fleet was English and Dutch, but Admiral Sir George 
Rooke hoisted the English flag above the Rock and there it has 
been ever since, controlling the navigation of the straits, never 
more completely than today. The Suez Canal began neutral in 



Disposition of Constantinople 121 

peace and in war, belligerent ships being excluded. Arabi Pasha 
took these pledges at their face value and lost Egypt to the Egyp- 
tians, whose labor built the canal. The Sublime Porte tried to 
apply to it the "ancient principle," which had guided the policy 
of the Ottoman Empire in the two water-ways indispensable to the 
safety of the Turkish capital; but the first breath of war destroyed 
guaranties signed and sealed, not on one but seveial "scraps of 
paper." 

The Panama Canal began neutral. It is today under the 
complete control of the United States. No administration will 
permit any other disposition in the present posture of the world's 
governance. It is fortified. It will be defended against all comers. 
All vessels pay the same dues but they are not under the same rights 
and they never will be, while international rights have no piotection 
by land or by sea but force. 

England and the United States have each an inmiediate and 
direct interest — one in Gibraltar and Suez, and the other in Panama, 
greater than any other land, one by its tonnage, and Indian empire, 
and the other by its territory, its trade and its twin coasts con- 
nected by the rift in the American Isthmus. Ljach is powerful 
enough to enforce this right against all comers. Neither will yield 
either strait. But as long as these straits are so held, no country 
dependent on a strait will be satisfied or can be satisfied by any 
control, short of that which broods an ever present power, at Gibral- 
tar, Suez, and Panama. The instant that power weakens, some 
other flag will fly over each strait. 

Unfortunately, instead of being early claimed by one strong 
power with special and particular rights, the Dardanelles and Bos- 
porous are equally needed by two strong powers and are necessary 
to the very existence of the empire which has so long held them. 
Neither Russia nor the Teuton alliance can treat as negligible the 
control of these straits. If the Mississippi flowed not into a gulf, 
but a closed sea, whose exits were the Panama Canal into the Pacific, 
and the Windward Passage into the Atlantic, we would never trust 
the key of either in the hands of any power, weak or strong. The 
straits which separate Europe and Asia are the real mouths of the 
Danube on one side, and on the other of the Dneiper, the Don and 
the Volga, connected with the Don by the canal from Kamgskin to 
Rasponiskata. 



122 The Annals of the American Academy 

If Turkey has remained in its present control of this access 
to the mouths of these streams, through the Black Sea, it is because 
neither Russia nor its Teuton neighbors were strong enough to 
seize these straits against United Europe. They cannot today. 
Neither will ever be satisfied with the other. 

These two powers are evenly matched as to each other. They 
have the same conflict as to landways as to waterways. Neither 
Russia nor the Teutonic powers can leave the control of the one 
practicable railroad across the Balkans from Belgrade to Salonica 
to chance. They can no more permit a weak power like Serbia to 
control one end of this rail route to the Aegean, to the Suez Canal, 
and to the world's commerce, or another weak power like Greece 
to control the other end at Salonica, any more than we could per- 
mit a weak power like Venezuela to hold the key to our ocean door. 
No strong power can safely permit this, if it can help itself, and no 
strong power will if it can do better, as witness the eligible vantage 
sites occupied by England. 

The question of Constantinople is really the question, there- 
fore, not of an ancient city or even of an imperial capital. It is 
the question of adjusting and securing freedom of access for a popu- 
lation of 260,000,000 in the Teutonic Alhance, Russia and the Bal- 
kan States by railroad lines and two straits, to the Mediterranean 
and the commerce of the world. 

The states in our Union are by every possible measure far 
more homogeneous than the group of lands, tongues and races which 
need and must have free impartial passage over these lands and 
water-ways to the South. But for the general authority over for- 
eign and interstate commerce by land and water possessed by the 
federal government, our own states would have plundered each 
other whenever one of them had control of any eligible land or 
water route. New York and New Jersey both levied tribute on 
passenger and freight traffic two generations ago, one by the head 
tax on the Camden and Amboy, and the other by rates on the Erie 
Canal, rates which paid off the capital cost of the water-way in 
about 40 years, with interest. 

Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Balkan States can- 
not possibly trust each other with the control of these great arteries 
of commerce summed in the Constantinople question. It is today 
impracticable to create any joint authority to regulate interstate 



Disposition of Constantinople 123 

commerce in this area, though the Danube Commission is a step 
in this direction, and the treaty agreements as to the Balkan rail- 
ways another. It was a difficult task for us to provide in our 
constitution for the distant regulation of commerce for a people, 
speaking one tongue, and a majority of one common origin. The 
solution of such a problem in East Europe has been beyond the 
political possibilities of the present and probably of the future. The 
Republic of Russia might accomplish this, if it dealt with republics 
in Germany, Austria and Hungary, but even Russia has only taken 
the first stage in the new Pilgrim's Progress to democracy, and the 
Slough of Despond may not be distant. 

Were all the lands involved republics, a federation might come. 
In democracy, and in democracy alone lies the peaceful solution of 
the contentious problems of international affairs. What imperial 
governments at Berlin, Vienna, and Petrogad could never accom- 
plish and could never be trusted to control or accomplish by the 
smaller kingdoms of the Balkans, could be done by federated states, 
with no ambition for conquest, and no motive for annexation. If 
the Germanic States were once united in a Federation of Germany 
in which the Prussian conquests of the past century recovered the 
autonomy once enjoyed by the Hanover and the rest; if the Slav 
and non-Slav States of the Balkans were federated, if the old inte- 
gers of rapacious Russian conquest reappeared in a federated repub- 
lic, these peaceful federations, German, Russian, Central Slav, South 
Slav and non-Slav, from Hungary to the Ottoman Repubhc, could 
control and regulate these landways and waterways, their rail- 
roads and the twin straits, on common and mutual principles pro- 
tecting the commerce and safety of all. Today, this seems a mere 
dream; but it is both more probable and more possible than before 
the events of the past three years. Empires can never be trusted. 
Federated republics by their nature and organization are peaceful 
and loyal. At all events the inevitable choice is between one great 
"Central Europe," dominating all between the Baltic and the 
North Sea, and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and a group of 
federated self-governing lands. 



124 The Annals of the American Academy 

JAPAN, AMERICA AND DURABLE PEACE 
By Toyokichi Iyenaga, Ph.D., 

Professorial Lecturer in Political Science, University of Chicago; Director "East 
and West News Bureau," New York. 

The problems of a durable peace await, for their definite formu- 
lation and practical solution, the issue of the present war. If Ger- 
man mihtarism comes out victorious, peace dictated by it cannot be 
but temporary. If, on the other hand, the cause of justice and 
liberty be fiilly vindicated, the bitterest experiences and untold 
miseries the war has inflicted upon the world should teach the people 
thereof that the evil doctrine of "might over right" must forever be 
discarded, and some method devised to insure the stability of peace 
and safeguard the interest of humanity. 

The world war, it seems to me, has already reached its last stage : 
a final decision cannot long be deferred. There was a time, I admit, 
when I entertained a doubt whether the European War would not 
end in a draw — in a peace without victory. When the policy and 
war measures adopted by the Entente Powers in the Balkans showed 
unmistakable signs of weakness, indecision and lack of cohesion, and 
in consequence the Allies were completely outmaneuvered and out- 
fought in the vigorous well-managed campaigns prosecuted by the 
Central Powers, too much optimism regarding the decided triumph 
of the Allies' cause seemed unwarranted. 

The first intimation that this temple of success reared by Ger- 
man arms could not long endure, but would sooner or later crumble 
to the ground by reason of the incompetence and blindness of 
German statesmanship, came to me through the publication of the 
now notorious Zimmermann note, which aimed to form a Ger- 
man-Japanese-Mexican Alliance to counteract the hostile measures 
of America. The monstrosity of that note was only equalled by its 
stupidity. As to Mexico, I am not in a position to know definitely 
her actual status or attitude; but for Japan I can assert most em- 
phatically that the note is a sufficient warrant to judge how low 
German statesmanship has fallen, how utterly ignorant it is of 
Japan's history and aspirations. It completely ignores "the spirit 
of Japan," by whatever name described — the Yamato-Damashi or 
Bushido — which puts honor and loyalty foremost in the list of 



Japan, America and Durable Peace 125 

virtues. A nation that holds honor dear to its heart will never turn 
traitor to its allies or without cause attack another nation with which 
it is on friendly terms. 

Germany doubtless measured Japan by her own standard of 
international ethics. Let me illustrate what I mean: Following 
the conclusion of the Shimonoseki Treaty, when Germany, Russia 
and France formed a formidable coaHtion with the purpose of 
robbing Japan of the best fruits of her victory over China by forcing 
upon her the retrocession of the Liaotung Peninsula, Prince Ito, 
then Premier of Japan, exclaimed: 

Germany, we shall never forgive!^. Russia^looks^upon^us^as aj^future rival in 
the Far East; France is, of course, her ally, and has important possessions and 
ancient interests in Eastern Asia. We can miderstand their action. But for 
Germany, which always professed genuine friendship and has no special interests 
in those regions, to join hands with them and stab us in the back — her intervention 
was odious and gratuitous. 

The reason why Germany joined the coalition was before long re- 
vealed to the world by the seizure of Kiaochow. 

In the same treacherous manner, moved by the same unholy 
motive, Germany thought Japan may be induced to play her foul 
game and checkmate the United States in the event of war between 
the two powers! And what was the ground upon which Germany 
built her hope for success of the infamous intrigue? Recently 
the German foreign minister had the audacity to declare in effect 
before the Reichstag that Japan has less antagonism toward Ger- 
many, though at war with her, than she has toward the United 
States. True, the Japanese have no antagonism toward the German 
people; rather do we admire their many worthy qualities and the 
valuable contributions they have made to science, philosophy and 
literature. It would also be idle to deny that Japan has certain 
grievances against the United States, which it would be befitting to 
the great American people to redress in conformity to the principles 
of justice and "the square deal" they have proclaimed to the world. 
These grievances are, however, of local origin and are capable of 
amicable settlement. To the United States as a nation, Japan has 
always professed genuine friendship. And this profession is no 
make-believe; it is true, honest, sincere. Manifestly German states- 
manship was well-nigh bankrupt when it hatched such a preposter- 
ous plot as the Zimmermann note reveals. 



126 The Annals of the American Academy 

And at last the death knell of German militarism was sounded 
when the American President and Congress resolved to enter the 
war! It is, indeed, beyond my comprehension how Germany could 
dare to challenge America to swell the ranks of her enemies. Have 
the great minds and statesmen who adorn the pages of German his- 
tory left no heirs? Have the souls of Kant, of Goethe, of Bismarck, 
left the Fatherland as a condemnation of the horrible crimes Ger- 
mans are today perpetrating on alien soils and the high seas? It 
was sheer madness for Germany to rouse the sleeping giant on this 
hemisphere and to let him mobilize the tremendous resources at his 
command in man power, money, credit and materials, for combatting 
the already hard-pressed foe. So far as the military situation in 
Europe goes, it may not be powerfully influenced, for a time, by the 
intervention of America, so that Germans can for a while dwell under 
the spell of their old illusion. But there is now no doubt as to which 
side of the belligerents will be final victor. When it is remembered 
that this war is so unlike other wars, that it is destined to be won on 
the farms, in the factories, the shipyards and the counting rooms, 
the overwhelming weight America brings will surely turn the scale 
to the side of the AUies. 

The question that arises in our mind is, how long will be the 
time before Germany collapses? I make bold to say that it would 
be to the great advantage of Germany to sue for peace today and 
immediately stop this awful carnage and destruction before she has 
inflamed the American public by an hostile encounter. If she 
would now lay her cards upon the table and ask for lenient terms of 
settlement, her enemies would probably not be loath to grant them. 
In this respect the influence of America would doubtless be strongly 
exerted in Germany's favor. Were Germany so to act I could under- 
stand for the first time why she dragged the United States into this 
war. 

The inertia of thought and action may, however, be too strong 
for Germany to take such a step before she has made another des- 
perate move. The period of conflict then depends upon two con- 
tingencies — the result of submarine warfare and the decided stroke 
dealt by Germany upon Russia or separate peace with her. If both 
fail Germany is lost. We sincerely pray that the might of a newly 
born democracy of Russia will defeat the ambition of Germany. 
As to the submarine warfare, menacing as it is, the Allies will surely 



Japan, America and Durable Peace 127 

find a way to combat it. The god of the U-boat seems to have so 
enslaved the German mind that it cannot see that his frightfulness 
will now be fully matched by American inventiveness, and that 
many times more tonnage than he can destroy will be forthcoming 
from the all-embracing lap of the American giant. Surely the days 
of German militarism are numbered. 

As one of the Entente Powers, Japan of course hails with joy the 
entrance of America into their ranks. There is, however, a special 
reason for Japan welcoming America, for there are between the two 
countries striking resemblances in the geographical positions they 
occupy and the attitudes they assume toward the European War. 
Effects of the war have hitherto been the same in both countries. 
The duties and functions America and Japan should fulfill are 
also similar — patrolling the neighboring seas, supplying their Allies 
with munitions and food and subscribing to their loans. I know 
not whether America will send an expeditionary force to Europe, 
but it is certain that neither America nor Japan would be interested 
in the remaking of the map of Europe. Both are waging war to 
crush German militarism, not the German people, so that an endur- 
ing peace based upon justice and hberty may be secured for the good 
of all nations. Consequently, in the future peace conference, Amer- 
ica and Japan are more than likely to join hands in every move they 
make, and to exert their influence in unison. Such cooperation will 
doubtless serve, to quote the words of the Japanese Emperor in his 
congratulatory message to President Wilson, ''to cement and con- 
secrate the lasting friendship of our two nations." 

In concluding, I may be permitted to add that, so far as 
America and Japan are concerned, nothing is more important for 
the furtherance of the cause of harmony than to eradicate the root 
of trouble that lies between the two countries. The task is not a 
difficult one, if you have only the will to do it. For the issue is 
simple and not at all in conflict with the vital interests of America. 
Japan is not playing the role of a pure ideahst, clamorous for the 
immediate realization of ideas that, however lofty and equitable, 
disregard the existing condition of the world we live in — a world far 
unlike the "Kingdom of Heaven." Therefore, it should be def- 
initely understood that Japan does not want to force upon the 
American people unrestricted immigration of her subjects. The 
"Gentlemen's Agreement" of 1907 stands intact and conforms to 



128 The Annals of the American Academy 

your wishes. What Japan asks is simply just and fair treatment 
to a small number of Japanese subjects residing in this country, in 
other words, the full recognition of their equality with people of other 
nationalities. Such recognition of equality, political and social, 
is denied to Japan, to speak frankly, so long as her subjects are 
discriminated against and cannot enjoy rights and privileges ac- 
corded to other aliens. It would be far from your thought, I hope, 
to begrudge Japan, now in the front rank of nations, full recognition 
of equality in America. Once this premise is granted, the logical 
conclusion that follows must be courageously faced, namely, that 
any discriminatory law or measure running counter to the principles 
of justice and fairness should be rectified or nulUfied. Pray do not 
misunderstand me. I am not insisting upon the repeal of the Anti- 
Alien Land Act. I am simply advocating that the same principles of 
justice, equality and liberty, for whose defense you have not hesi- 
tated even to risk the hazard of this war, should be put into effect 
in the relation between America and Japan as in all international 
relations. 

There may be many ways to accomplish the purpose. American 
resourcefulness, which is unbounded, is certainly equal to the task 
of finding the means. The trouble lies in the fact that the American 
people are not yet fully convinced of the vital importance of doing it. 
So long as this work remains undone, I must state with your permis- 
sion what I consider to be the plain truth, much as I regret to say it, 
that the problems of a durable peace between America and Japan 
will not have received their definite and final solution. Conse- 
quently, while Japanese must do all in their power to make the work 
easy for you, at the same time I appeal to you most earnestly and 
sincerely to lend your powerful influence for the attainment of the 
object, so that the relations between our beloved countries may rest 
on the solid and safe rock of lasting friendship. 



Durable Feace between United States and Japan 129 



FOUNDATIONS FOR A DURABLE PEACE BETWEEN 
THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN 

By Hans von Kaltenborn, 
Assistant Managing Editor of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 

I am going to present a point of view on the relations between 
America and Japan somewhat different from that presented by Dr. 
lyenaga.^ In every discussion by Japanese of this problem, they 
declare that it is a local issue peculiar to this or that state which may 
happen to be passing anti-alien land legislation. And yet the 
character of their demands will show that the issue is far more 
fundamental, that it cannot be exclusively related to the legislation 
of any one state or any half-dozen states in our Union (for there are 
half a dozen which have passed anti-alien land legislation similar to 
that of California) ; that it is, on the contrary, a fundamental prob- 
lem of racial equality. 

Let us, therefore, put out of our minds once and for all, the 
notion that this discrimination against the Japanese is an arbitrary 
discrimination practised by wilful individual units of our federal 
system. The problem confronting the United States and Japan is a 
fundamental problem of equality, and that problem has its origin 
in the citizenship law of the United States,^ which has been on our 
statute books for many generations. This law provides that no 
member of the brown or yellow race can obtain citizenship in this 
countr}^, and hence makes impossible political equality for Japanese 
residents. 

If we desire to remove that discrimination — and I am not at all 
sure that in the course of time we may not desire to remove it — that 
is one thing, but let us not forget that this discrimination applies to 
800,000,000 people and not exclusively to the Japanese. It is the 
federal naturalization law which declares that the right to become 
naturalized applies only to aliens being free white persons, and to 
aliens of African nativity, and to persons of African descent, and 
thereby makes it impossible for any state to grant political equality 
to the yellow or the brown races. 

1 See page 124. 

» Revised U. S. Statutes, Section 2169. 



130 The Annals of the American Academy 

With this much estabUshed, let me go a little further and try to 
point out how we can best approach this problem at the conclusion of 
the war when we shall confront the opportunity of creating a durable 
peace. We must approach it, now that we are allied with all the 
white peoples whose lands border the Pacific, in full cooperation with 
these peoples. We must join with them as well as with Japan and 
the representatives of other elements of the brown and of the yellow 
races, at the great peace conference. There we must all work to- 
gether to find the definite solution of this problem, because it is not a 
local problem peculiar to a state; it is not a local problem pecuhar to 
the United States and Japan; it is a problem which has caused serious 
difficulty and serious thought, aye, and serious disturbance in every 
white country which borders the Pacific. We are going to get a false 
perspective on this issue if we fail to remember that it is an acute 
issue in British Columbia, where there is worse discrimination against 
the Japanese than in the United States, for under the laws of Canada, 
British Columbia has naturalized natives of Japan and yet has re- 
fused to let them vote, a discrimination which has been upheld by the 
Privy Council in London. In Australia we find that Japanese are 
not only unable to own land, but they are forbidden to enter the 
country. Even Japanese students and travelers who may come 
and go as they like in the United States are not permitted to remain 
in Australia over twelve months. South Africa, too, desires to keep 
out Asiatics and has taken steps to prevent their coming. Wherever 
white men predominate they have fought against Asiatic immigra- 
tion. 

Thus we face a problem that is not that of a state, nor that of 
the United States, but a problem as broad and as deep as the gulf 
which separates two races whose standards of living are far apart. 
Until we remove the economic aspect of the problem inherent in 
Japanese immigration to our Pacific Coast, we are not likely to find 
a solution which will satisfy Japan as well as the United States. 
Professor Tatabe, of the Tokio Imperial University, summed it all 
up in this one sentence: "Under the American standard of living 
two billion people can exist on earth, under the Japanese standard 
twenty-two billion." Until this economic difference can be com- 
promised this Japanese question will continue to plague the white 
races of the earth. 

Episodes in Japan's history make us feel that it is the honor of 



Nationality and Freedom of Commerce 131 

Japan and loyalty to Japan which have been emphasized, and that a 
spirit of autocratic imperialism has sometimes dominated the sober 
sense of that nation. Therefore, let us hope that in Japan, too, 
those democratic elements now struggling for expression will 
triumph, and that those liberals who are, like Dr. lyenaga, re- 
sponsive to democratic ideals, may guide Japan's future course. 
Then, with the liberals of Japan and America cooperating, with the 
people of all the lands that border the Pacific working together to 
settle this issue as we are now fighting together for the same cause, 
let us hope that then we can at last settle this question in a way 
which shall make the foundation of an enduring peace. 



NATIONALITY AND FREEDOM OF COMMERCE 
PREREQUISITES TO A DURABLE PEACE 

By Stephen P. Duggan, Ph.D., 
College of the City of New York, New York. 

The Balkan problem we have had with us for over a century. 
It was the occasion of the present war. It will be with us in the 
future unless a wise solution and a solution based upon proper 
principles of international reorganization is followed. 

Now, what are those principles of international reorganization? 
As Professor Brown of Princeton^ has stated there are three princi- 
ples upon which such a reorganization must be based if the reorgani- 
zation is to last: the recognition of the principle of nationality; the 
right of nations to their own free development without being 
dominated by other nations; and the right of a nation to freedom of 
commerce with the world's markets. 

The reason whj^ the Balkan problem has been with us for over 
a century and has presented itself as the powder magazine of Europe 
for the last fifty years is because every one of those principles has 
been violated. The Balkans have never been permitted freedom of 
development because of the rival antagonisms of the great powers 
of Europe. For a long time Great Britain felt that in order to make 
secure her passage to India and her commerce to the East, it was 
necessary that the Straits be in the control of Turkey, and for that 

^ See page 76. 



132 The Annals of the American Academy 

reason, Turkish control over the other Balkan states was to be 
maintained and Turkish misrule continued. When, after the Arabi 
Pasha Rebelhon in Egypt in 1880, England occupied Egypt and 
secured control of it and thereby safeguarded her route to India, 
her interest in the Balkan problem waned and her demand for the 
maintenance of the integrity of Turkey diminished. 

The void was filled at once, almost, by another group of Euro- 
pean powers, the Central Powers — Germany and Austria-Hungary. 
Germany came on the international stage as a great power quite 
late. Looking around for colonies into which to send her surplus 
products, she found most of the world taken up by other powers, 
but she saw that there was one region that remained comparatively 
unexploited. That was Asia Minor, and she determined that that 
was to be her "place in the sun." She must, therefore, take the 
place of Great Britain in dominating in Constantinople, and she 
took with her as her partner, Austria-Hungary. They divided up 
the field: Germany was to dominate in Constantinople and Asia 
Minor; Austria was to dominate in the Balkans. Germany did her 
job with efficiency. She did dominate in Constantinople and 
practically in Asia Minor. Austria bungled her job and only 
aroused increasing antagonism on the part of the Balkan nations 
against her. 

Now, this suppression of all attempts on the part of the Balkan 
nations towards their own free development can only be overcome 
when those same Balkan nations understand that the confedera- 
tion which they for one short year enjoyed and by means of which 
they presented a united front against any other power, should be 
reestablished. It may be said that that is the very thing that the 
Allies attempted to get the Balkan states to do at the opening of 
the war, to reestablish the Balkan Confederation and thereby pre- 
vent the union of Austria-Hungary and Germany with Turkey. 
But it must be remembered that the principles upon which the 
present situation in the Balkans is based were founded upon the 
Treaty of Bucharest which we signed at the end of the second 
Balkan War. That treaty violates the three principles pointed out 
above as the only principles upon which a true international reor- 
ganization can be based. 

There is no reason, however, why those states should not con- 
federate and present a united front. When they did in 1912, they 



Nationality and Frkedom of Commerce 133 

did it equitably. Before the first Balkan War, Serbia and Bulgaria 
came to an agreement and signed a treaty by means of which the 
only region in which there was a mixture of races, Macedonia, was 
divided fairly, Bulgaria getting the bigger portion. Why was that 
not carried out? Because again of the baleful influence of foreign 
domination, because Austria-Hungary was determined that F^erbia 
should not get what she called her "window on the Adriatic," and 
by preventing her from doing that, compelled Serbia to look for 
compensation in Macedonia and to violate the agreement with 
Bulgaria. 

Now if the nations are going to solve the problem in the Bal- 
kans at the end of the war, the principles mentioned alreadj-- must 
be observed: the first of these is the principle of nationality. The 
two great principles of the French Revolution, democracy and 
nationality, are not yet in process of consummation because our 
political practice has always been about a century behind our 
political theory. Despite the teachings of history that you cannot 
suppress nations unless they are willing to be suppressed, despite 
the fact that for over one hundred and fifty years Poland was 
divided, and yet Poland is vigorous today, despite the fact that 
Bohemia, Ireland and other suppressed nations are problems for 
which statesmen seek solution today, it is probable that even at 
the general reorganization which comes, a solution might be at- 
tempted which will violate this principle. 

If the principle of nationality were carried out what kind of a 
territorial reorganization would take place in the Balkans? I per- 
sonally think, as the result of a good deal of study of this problem, 
that it is of comparatively simple solution, provided the fine ideals 
presented by Mr. Wilson to the world, and which are having such 
a splendid moral effect upon all the peoples of the world, will be 
followed. The trouble with the Balkans is that a large portion of 
each of the nations is in a free and independent state and the rest 
of it is under the domination and subjection of some other state, 
chiefly Austria-Hungary. Over eight millions of Roumanians are 
in free and independent Roumania, but over three millions are out- 
side of it. There are more Serbians outside of Serbia, in such places 
as Bosnia and Herzegovina, than in Serbia. The majority of the 
Greeks, as you know, are not in Greece but in the islands and on 
the shores of Asia Minor in Turkish dominions. 



134 The Annals of the American Academy 

Now if the principle of nationality were carried out in the first 
place, the Roumanians outside of Roumania, in Transylvania and 
Bukowina who are so pitilessly persecuted in Hungary, would be 
united to Roumania. Ideally, it would mean that Bessarabia in 
Russia, which is inhabited by Roumanians would also be united to 
Roumania. It would mean also that Roumania would restore to 
Bulgaria that part of Dobrudja which is a part of Bulgaria. The 
greater portion of this is likely to happen if the Allies win. Those 
portions of Austria-Hungary which Roumanian peoples inhabit will 
at least probably go to Roumania. 

What is the second element in the reorganization? It seems to 
me that despite the actions of Bulgaria in 1913 and 1915 — in 1913 
attacking her allies and in 1915 siding with the Central powers and 
with her old enemy Turkey — she ought to receive the Macedonian 
territory that she has conquered in this war. It must be remembered 
that Bulgaria sees the opportunity for a greater Roumania that I 
have just pointed out, for a greater Serbia that I shall describe, for 
a greater Greece in the Aegean, but that she, hemmed in on all 
sides by these three, will need all the Bulgarians in a compact state 
to maintain her national existence. 

A third element in this reorganization would be a greater 
Serbia, or better still, as most of the students of the problems of 
the Balkans believe, what would be called a United States of Ugo- 
Slavia or South Slavia. Every intelligent person, who has read 
at all on the problem of the Balkans, understands the great desire 
on the part of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be united 
with Serbia. Few, however, know that north of those crownlands 
are others, Croatia and Slavonia particularly, that are just as anx- 
ious to be united and to be free and independent. They, too, are 
Slavs like the Serbs. They all speak languages practically alike. 
They have customs alike. They are of the same race. They differ 
in religion, the Serbs being Orthodox, the Croatians and Slovenes 
being Roman Catholics, and the Austria-Hungarian policy has 
been pushed to the utmost to keep them divided. But the out- 
rageous persecution of the South Slavs that began in 1909, ending in 
the treason trials at Agram, where the Austria-Hungary govern- 
ment was proved to be guilty of forged documents in order to secure 
the conviction of men accused of treason, has driven these two 
peoples together. Up to 1909, all Croatians and Slovenes and 



Nationality and Freedom of Commerce 135 

South Slavs of Austria-Hungary wanted a union, union within the 
monarchy if possible, but union anyhow. Now it looks as if noth- 
ing could prevent, eventually at least, the union of all the South 
Slavs including Serbia and Montenegro in a great South Slav state. 
If history repeats itself, that consummation is inevitable. Moldavia 
and Wallachia, the two provinces of Roumania, when they secured 
their independence by the Treaty of Paris of 1856 were not permitted 
by the powers to unite into a single state. But they did three years 
later. By the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, Bulgaria was divided, but 
in five years the treaty was broken by the people who united them- 
selves. If, as a result of the international reorganization which we 
hope is going to be based upon sound principles, these states are not 
united in a great South Slav state, it will only be the prelude to a 
movement later on whereby they will be united. 

The last element in this reorganization is Greece. If the reor- 
ganization is to take place on the principle of nationality, the only 
Balkan state to be diminished in size is continental Greece, because 
that part of the territorj^ east of the Vardar River which Greece 
took from Bulgaria at the end of the second Balkan War is inhabited 
primarily by Bulgarians and is Bulgarian in influence and ought to 
belong to Bulgaria. But it is to be remembered that the future of 
Greece is where the glory of Greece was in the classical days — ^it is 
in the Aegean Islands and on the shores of Asia Minor. It is to be 
remembered that in 1915, Great Britain offered Cyprus to Greece 
if she would come into the war on the side of the Allies. It is also 
to be remembered that in 1915 the greatest of the Greek statesmen, 
Venizelos, was willing to cede to Bulgaria the district east of the 
Vardar, including the town of Kavala, in the hope that Greece 
would get the city and province of Smyrna on the shores of Asia 
Minor. In other words, the solution of the Balkan problem on the 
principle of nationality would work again for a greater Greece, as 
for a greater Serbia, a greater Bulgaria and a greater Roumania. 

There remains only one state in the Balkans to be considered. 
That is Turkey. I hope that the war will end by the Turks being 
put back, bag and baggage, out of Constantinople. What will 
become of Constantinople? Constantinople has no nationality. Of 
the million people in it, about half, perhaps a little less than half, 
are Moslems, but there is a' fifth portion that are Greeks and a fifth 
portion Armenians, and there are a great many Jews. It is a gath- 



136 The Annals of the American Academy 

ering of all races and nations. Now I sympathize with the desire 
of Russia to get to warm water. The whole policy of the past cen- 
tury has been dictated by that. I do not think that Russian policy 
has been dictated by a desire for conquest, it has been dictated by a 
desire for free access to warm water. It may astonish you to know 
that of the 20,000 miles of seacoast in Europe, Russia, which has 
half of the territory of Europe, has less than 2,000 of those miles, 
and a large portion of those 2,000 miles are icebound in winter. So 
I sympathize with the desire of Russia to get to warmer water. 

The great dislike for Russia maintained by Scandinavia, by 
Norway and Sweden, has always been because of the fear that in 
her desire to get to warm water, she would cross them and annex 
them as she did Finland. 

But if Russia is put in control of Constantinople, the same 
sack in which she was held in the past could be maintained for other 
states. If Russia is put in Constantinople and can at any time 
shut the straits, as Turkey has shut the straits to her several times, 
it means that the commerce of Roumania and Bulgaria, too, can be 
strangled. 

Hence unless those two principles, one of nationality and the 
other of economic access for freedom of commerce, are going to be 
the bases of the Balkan settlement, the present war will only be a 
prelude to another war. 

THE ECONOMIC FACTORS IN AN ENDURING PEACE 

By E. E. Pratt, Ph.D., 
Chief, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Washington, D. C. 

The economic center of the present conflict is the struggle 
between Germany and the United Kingdom. These two countries 
represent essentially different commercial and economic systems. 
Great Britain, confident in the excellence of its products and in the 
retention of long-held markets, was slow to introduce labor-saving 
devices, large-scale production and efficiency methods, and was 
gradually finding its wares displaced, even in its own markets, by 
the products of less conservative nations. Germany, keenly alive 
to the opportunity thus created, set out to invade practically every 
great market of the world, with the help of the most modern ap- 
pliances, the most modern methods of utilizing labor, and a very 



Economic Factors in an Enduring Peace 137 

practical, thorough and comprehensive system of commercial educa- 
tion. Even this educational system became a source of friction 
between England and Germany through the influx of young Ger- 
mans in England to take up clerkships there as a part of their train- 
ing. 

England had the advantage of almost unHmited possibilities 
of expansion in her colonies. Germany was poor in colonies and 
found most of the world's surface preempted. But she solved the 
problem of expansion by making her colonization economic rather 
than national. And the German settlements in the developing 
countries of the world have been perhaps as effective in extending 
the influence and increasing the trade of the mother country as have 
the great colonies of England. 

Besides the sharply defined commercial rivalry of England and 
Germany, the war had minor causes of an economic nature — 
Russia's reaching out for an ice-free port, Japan's desire for a freer 
hand and a larger trade in China, and Germany's dream of obtaining 
economic jurisdiction over the near east. All these factors, which 
together account for the great war in its economic aspect, may also 
help to determine the economic elements in an enduring peace. 

The statement was often made before the war broke out in 
Europe that nations are economically interdependent, and that 
statement is truer today, perhaps, than ever before. Germany's 
position now is a forced attempt at economic independence, and if 
she is losing out, it is simply because such a position at present is 
absolutely untenable. 

For some of the materials essential to the conduct of the war, 
almost all the world's supply is derived from two or three countries. 
Rubber is produced extensively only in Brazil, the Straits Settle- 
ments and the East Indies; nitrates, only in Chile; tin, only in 
Malaysia and Bolivia; platinum, only in Russia and Colombia; 
manganese, only in Russia, India and Brazil; diamonds, only in 
Africa; and jute, only in India, Sulphuric acid, which is essential 
in the manufacture of practically all the high explosives, can be 
obtained only from sulphur and from pyrite. Sulphur is produced 
in commercial quantities only in Sicily, the United States and Japan, 
and almost one third of the world's pyrite supply comes from Spain. 
Over half of the world's tungsten is produced in Burma, Portugal 
and the United States. 

All these very essential materials, therefore, are controlled to 



138 The Annals of the American Academy 

a considerable and in some cases to a very large extent by a very 
small number of producing countries. Before the war, most of us 
perhaps were alive to the advantages of an export trade, but it 
must be counted as one of the lessons of the war that our economic 
life and the export trade itself are dependent, much more than had 
been realized, on our import trade. 

The economic factors responsible for the war and the economic 
interdependence of the nations of the world, upon which the war has 
thrown new light, point the way toward the conditions of an en- 
during peace. In the first place, each nation must have access to 
raw materials and markets for its products in order to insure in- 
dustrial development along the lines for which it is best suited. 
Secondly, there must be no preferential tariffs. Before the war 
Russia was dependent upon Germany to a very considerable degree 
as a market not only for rye and wheat but for mineral products as 
well; and German influence had permeated Russian trade and in- 
dustry. Now if Great Britain establishes a tariff on foodstuffs 
and raw materials and gives a preference to colonial goods in return 
for colonial tariff preferences to British manufactures, Russia will be 
forced again to sell her wheat to Germany. It is absolutely neces- 
sary, therefore, that England's markets, especially for foodstuffs, 
be opened to Russia and that British and American capital be in- 
vested in Russian industries. The United States also will expect 
freer entrance for its products into certain foreign markets. Dis- 
crimination against American goods, as now practised by France and 
Canada, cannot safely continue. 

Commercial treaties are not sufficient to prevent disagreements. 
In some cases they even create difficulties for third parties, if not for 
those directly concerned; and their shortcomings emphasize the 
need of broader international agreements on many subjects that 
now cause disputes among nations. There is opportunity for this 
country to adopt a vigorous policy on international agreements 
with regard to the parcel post, patents and trade-marks, commercial 
statistics, commercial travelers, customs and sanitary regulations, 
and many similar matters, which could be satisfactorily handled 
by this method. 

There might also be uniform shipping rules. At present the 
rebates given by certain steamship companies furnish one of the 
standing causes of disputes in the shipping world; but no one nation 
will force its steamship companies to eliminate rebates as long as 



International Freedom of the Press 139 

steamship companies of other nations are free to offer them. Such 
difficulties might, however, be adjusted by an international agree- 
ment similar to the Brussels Sugar Convention. International 
control might likewise settle the long-continued controversies over 
points of strategic commercial importance, such as the Dardanelles 
and the railroad across Afghanistan or through Bagdad. 

One of the strongest weapons of the proposed League to En- 
force Peace would be its control of a certain number of raw materials, 
through the fact that members of the league produce the greater 
part of the world's supply. If, for example, a league among the 
nations thus had control of certain of the essential raw materials to 
which I have directed your attention and could, in the event of war, 
sufficiently curtail the shipment to any country of those essential 
raw materials, it would be a question of only a few weeks or a few 
months before the nation opposing the league would be forced into 
peace. 

I have attempted rather to meet the subject with suggestions 
than to cover it in any comprehensive or detailed way. Broadly 
speaking, the subject reduces itself to one consideration. The 
present war is largely an economic struggle. The disputes of the 
future, whether or not they eventuate in war, will have their origin, 
to a large degree, in international trade problems. We must bend 
all our efforts, therefore, to reducing the points of conflict in trade 
and commerce, if we are to hope for an enduring peace. 



INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM OF THE PRESS ESSEN- 
TIAL TO A DURABLE PEACE 

By David Lawrence, 

Washington correspondent of The New York Evening Post. 

I write this from a war capital — only lately a city of peace. 
For two and a half years we have been a neutral nation. Suddenly 
we have become a belligerent. In that transition from a state of 
neutrality to a state of belligerency lies the key to the problem of a 
durable peace. I do not wish to be misunderstood in anything I 
may say here today as conveying disappointment that the United 
States has entered the war against Germany for no man can be dis- 
appointed with that which is right, painful or distasteful as that may 
be. But I am disappointed that the United States somehow lacked 



140 The Annals of the American Academy 

the moral or expressive power to convey to Germany the rightness 
of our contention and that Germany seemed utterly incapable of 
understanding the right and accepting it, painful or distasteful as 
that might have become. 

No better demonstration, indeed, of the problem that must be 
solved before there can be durable peace in the world has been given 
in modern history than is contained in the sequence of circumstances 
under which the United States, three thousand miles distant from 
Germany, has just become involved in a state of war. The joint 
failure of Germany and the United States to remain at peace after 
correspondence of nearly three years emphasizes the futility of 
diplomacy and unofficial instrumentalities to preserve peace when 
there is no free interchange of public opinions between nations. 

Could the heart of America have been poured out to the people 
of Germany, could the utter unwillingness of the United States to 
enter the European War have been demonstrated conclusively to 
the German people, could the passionate desire of the American 
people to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for the vindication of the 
rights of humanity and the laws of nation have been convincingly 
carried home to the people of Germany, and moreover could the 
German people have spoken their will through a representative 
body, who is there who will say that the United States and Germany 
would nevertheless have been at war today? The German people 
are not so unlike our own people as to be deaf to the voice of reason. 
They either are unenlightened and uninformed as to the profound 
impression which inhumane methods of warfare have had on neutral 
peoples, or they are involuntarily silent, indeed impotent still to 
utter a protest or effect a change in their government. 

What does America today pray for? What is it that will be 
hailed as the first sign of peace and the restoration of reason in 
Germany? A revolution, the overthrow of the imperial govern- 
ment that has decreed submarine warfare, that has deported Bel- 
gians, that has justified the destruction of the Lusitania — the murder 
of noncombatant women and children on land and sea. Would 
the German people in possession of democratic institutions have 
sanctioned these atrocities? Americans do not think so. And, 
therefore, the universal hope is for a revolution that will release a 
spirit of democracy that is in potential existence wherever intelH- 
gent and civilized peoples live. But how can such a revolution be 
eflected, how can democracy assert itself without available processes 



International Freedom of the Press 141 

for the crystallization of public opinion? There are no such proces- 
ses as yet in Germany. Autocratic government is still powerful 
enough to prevent free speech, free assemblage and the election of a 
legislature by the free will of the people. 

It is the constitutional freedom of the press that has made of 
America a democracy in fact as well as in name. It is the freedom 
of the press that permits the formation of public opinion. German 
newspapers have been timidly subservient to the autocratic inter- 
ests of the imperial government. They have often been secretly 
subsidized by the German government. They have been even in 
time of peace directly controlled by the government. 

The most essential problem in the making of a durable peace 
is the dissolution of any partnership that may exist in any country 
between the government and the press. There can be no govern- 
ment by the consent of the governed unless the people have a means 
to make known their wishes. In America they not only have 
chosen representatives in Congress to speak for them but enough 
uncontrolled newspapers throughout the length and breadth of the 
land through which the people can speak uninterruptedly to Con- 
gress when once assembled. 

Last, but not least, is the question of editorial and news inter- 
course between nations. The spoken words of physical contact are 
of course most effective in preventing or solving international mis- 
understandings but the interchange of pubUc opinions through the 
press is often the only way that distances can be overcome. News 
and editorial opinion passing from nation to nation must not be 
treated as contraband by an intervening state at any time. Other- 
wise there is an opportunity for the interposition of the national 
point of view of states through which cables and telegraph lines 
must pass enroute to a nation most vitally interested in under- 
standing the viewpoint of another with which it is in controversy 
or dispute. Interference with the free intercourse of nations 
through the press either by financial seduction of news agencies 
engaged in international news distribution or by the exercise of 
arbitrary powers over the press of any people that desires to be free 
must necessarily impede international harmony. It must defeat 
the development of that international mind, as distinguished from 
a national or provincial attitude, which is so essential to the success 
of any league to enforce peace or concert of self-governing nations. 
There must he international freedom of the press. 



SOVEREIGNTY AND RACE AS AFFECTED BY A 
LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

By Theodore Marburg, 

Formerly United States Minister to Belgium. 

Just as the old idea of natural rights has given way to the 
conception that the state has a right to do whatever it is in the 
interest of society in the long result that it should do, so it is 
becoming plain that the doctrine of absolute sovereignty set up to 
guard the state itself against interference by other states must 
ultimately give way before the conception of a society of nations. 
As is well known, the theory of natural rights, which set boundaries 
to the activities of the state operating on its own people, was 
designed to protect men against the power of the autocrat. When 
governments came to reflect the will of the people the need for 
this device disappeared. The doctrine of absolute sovereignty had 
its origin in a similar motive. The theory was designed to safe- 
guard the right of the individual state in a world where the powerful 
state was governed by few rules or precepts and was moved prin- 
cipally by the desire for aggrandizement. As democracy spreads, 
the dominating motive of aggrandizement is diminished and the 
desire to do justice to the sister state begins to emerge. When this 
happens the same ultimate test may be applied to the doctrine of 
sovereignty as was applied to the doctrine of natural rights. 

If it is in the interests of men that nations should enjoy sov- 
ereignty full and unimpaired, well and good. If, on the contrary, 
sovereignty unimpaired leads to disaster — in the shape, for example, 
of unjust and destructive wars — it should not be suffered to con- 
tinue. The state should retain only so much sovereignty as makes 
for the welfare of men organized in states. 

The experience of the forty-eight states now comprising the 
United States of America is really an application of this conception. 
The Union was constituted of sovereign and independent states. 
They surrendered sovereignty but not self-government. The 
separate states of the Union still govern themselves with respect 

142 



A League of Nations 143 

to three quarters of the things that touch the public interest. 
Absolute sovereignty was surrendered by them in the common 
interest. 

Now, world opinion is not ripe for a union of the nations so 
complete as the union of the American states under a federal 
government. But even a rudimentary organization must be 
based upon this same conception, namely, the right of the society 
of nations to demand of the individual states whatever it is in the 
interest of the race that they should demand. 

Within the state the individual without wealth or influence 
who, in former times, was preyed upon by the powerful, now enjoys, 
under modern institutions, the same rights and privileges before 
the law as the wealthy and powerful. Just so, under a properly 
organized society of nations, the small state will come to enjoy 
security equal to that of its more powerful neighbor, a security 
far more ample than any doctrine of absolute sovereignty can give 
it under present conditions. 

Society implies restraint. We can have no liberty without a 
surrender of license. The one license which it has become perfectly 
clear the nations must surrender is the license to make war at will. 
Begin with that demand, make it difficult for nations to settle 
disputes by force, and they will seek and find other ways to settle 
them. That truth is at the very bottom of the whole movement 
for world organization. If we take our stand upon that demand 
the machinery for settling disputes will come. 

In this connection a few words must be said about the 
question of race and alien government. Certain groups, such 
as the Netherlands Anti-Oorlog Raad, demand a plebiscite of the 
inhabitants before a transfer of territory is permitted. Theoretic- 
ally this would seem to fit in with the demands of justice. Prac- 
tically, serious difficulties present themselves in connection with 
the proposal. 

In the first place, to admit this right of approval by the 
population of the territory about to be transferred involves logically 
the right of secession. Suppose, for example, that at the end of 
this war the people of Alsace are consulted about restitution of 
the province to France, that they should approve of it and that 
the transfer is thereupon made. If, then, at a future time, these 
same people of Alsace should reach the conclusion that they had 



144 The Annals of the American Academy 

made a mistake and should demand release from their allegiance to 
France, could this demand logically be denied? And are we 
prepared to admit the right of secession whenever a local com- 
munity exhibits discontent under a government? To have set up 
such a principle would have conceded the right of the New England 
States to secede from the American Union when the several waves 
of discontent swept over them at the end of the eighteenth century 
and in the early years of the nineteenth century. It would have 
admitted the right of the Southern States to secede when the 
slavery issue became acute. It would admit the right of Ireland 
today to secede from Great Britain and to establish, close to the 
border of the home country, a separate sovereignty which might 
afford a foothold for an enemy attack. 

Peace is secured by union, not by disruption. For generations 
the border of England and Scotland was the scene of bloody strife, 
all stilled by the union of these two countries in 1707. For fourteen 
hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire of the west, Italy 
was torn by ceaseless wars between her city states and between her 
principalities, leaving her an easy prey to the invader- — ^all stilled 
by union. The mind of Cavour grasped this truth firmly and laid 
broad the foundations for a single Italian State which has spelled 
rebirth, security and progress. 

For centuries men witnessed similar wars between the prin- 
cipalities and petty kingdoms of France. It was the very establish- 
ment of strong central government in France at an early day 
which enabled her to shine as a leader in Europe in all the walks of 
civilization. 

In Germany for long years the hand of every baron and petty 
noble was turned against his neighbor. There too it was con- 
sohdation which brought law and ordered progress. 

In the second place the plebiscite is often a meaningless form. 
Certainly it has been such in France, where it has been used to 
confirm a fait accompli. For the people to endeavor to undo the 
thing already done would have meant anarchy. Therefore the 
result has usually been millions of affirmative votes against a few 
thousand negative votes. Napoleon Bonaparte made himself 
first Consul in December, 1799, organized his government and six 
weeks thereafter instituted a plebiscite to confirm his act. Is there 
any need to say what the result of that plebiscite was? When in 



A League of Nations 145 

May, 1804, he had safely gotten the title of Emperor conferred on 
him by the Senate he again invited a plebiscite with hke result. 
Louis Napoleon was not slow to see the advantages of this method. 
A plebiscite, December 20, 1851, endorsed his high-handed metnods 
of deahng with the National Assembly and of perpetuating himself 
as President of the liepublic in violation of the provisions of the 
Constitution. Next, having gathered into his hands all executive 
power with the right to nominate the members of the Senate and 
of the Council of State, through which alone legislation could be 
initiated, he proceeded once more to institute a plebiscite^ which 
conferred on him the title of Emperor. 

Now, is not the question of a transfer of territory in much 
the same category? Such transfer at the end of a war has to be 
agreed upon in framing the treaty of peace. For the people of 
the territory in question to negative the decision of the Congress 
might mean reopening the vital issues of the war and so renewing 
the war. Under such circumstances, is there any doubt that the 
votes of the inhabitants will simply register what the Congress has 
decreed? At such times, too, the men ''in possession" generally 
get their will done. Dicey refers to the way in which, during the 
J^rench E evolution, "the Terrorist faction, when all but crushed 
by general odium, extorted from the country by means of a plebi- 
scite a sham assent to the prolongation of revolutionary despotism." 
The real solution of the problem of race conflict hes in equal 
poHtical rights for all white men in white men's countries. If the 
Johannesburger had enjoyed the full franchise under the Boer 
government the injustice practised against him would have been 
impossible and the South African War would not have occurred. 
When men everywhere come to enjoy equal political rights- 
enabling them to help themselves to full civil rights and religious 
liberty— they will in course of time cease to care whether they live 
under this or that government. 

Discontent will further tend to disappear if we add to this the 
system of local self-government such as obtains in the United 
States, where the people of the separate states govern themselves 
in respect of the majority of things that touch their interests. 

A league of nations to discourage war is almost certain to 
come into being after the present conflict, because the Entente 
Powers, in their joint note of January 10 to Mr. Wilson, committed 



146 The Annals of the American Academy 

themselves formally and officially to the project. But, until it 
is shown that the league can and will protect its members against 
sudden assault, until it is shown that the league itself will hold 
together in times of storm and stress, no country can be expected 
to place its sole reliance for protection on it. Until then, Great 
Britain, for example, could not in fairness be asked to impair the 
strength of her great fleet. 

An important line of progress in the history of war has been 
the tendency to spare the non-combatant and confine the conflict 
to the armed forces of the belligerents. These helpful rules of 
war, so painfully bought by experience and laboriously worked 
out through generations of endeavor, Germany has thrown to the 
winds. And she has not stopped there. Deeds which men, relying 
upon the common dictates of humanity, thought it wholly un- 
necessary specifically to forbid, have been done, not in the heat of 
battle, but deliberately as part of a conscious policy. Others 
among the belligerents are not free from blame for giving way to the 
temptation to retaliate. But in their case we behold the spawn of 
an uncontrollable rage excited by the acts of the enemy. 

To many men the crimes committed in this war, the very 
assault itself, were, before the event, simply unbelievable. The 
result is a shock to confidence — confidence in the binding force of 
treaty obligations, confidence in international law, and confidence 
in the upright intentions of the neighbor. No matter what the 
issue of the war, we are therefore apt, for a time, to witness arma- 
ments going on at an accelerated pace. But once the German 
menace is definitely removed by a change of spirit on the part of the 
German people, the world may not only work back to its normal 
condition, but the existence of a league of nations — after it shall 
have established general confidence in its ability to do what it is 
designed to do — must eventually bring about an actual amelioration 
of the condition of armed peace existing before the present war. 
To the security due to the geographical position which some nations 
enjoy, and to their individual preparedness, states will then add 
the security of a guarantee by the familj'- of nations against sudden 
attack. 



The Interest and Rights of Nationality 147 



THE INTERESTS AND RIGHTS OF NATIONALITY 

By C. E. McGuire, Ph.D., 
Assistant Secretary, International High Comnaission. 

An examination of the history of the idea of nationaUty and 
the study of the development of nationahsm, especially in the nine- 
teenth century, would permit the enumeration of many instances of 
the depression and restraint of nationality; and, on the other hand, 
it would not be easy to cite a single example of a nationalism unam- 
bitious further to expand and satisfied that it had fulfilled every 
legitimate aspiration. If by some magic formula wc were able to 
reverse the position of the world's affairs and subordinate the 
vigorous and dominating nations of Europe to the weaker and 
oppressed, what assurance have we that the latter would not 
manifest the same callous disregard that now is alleged to char- 
acterize the former? Is it, therefore, nothing but a matter of cumu- 
lative community selfishness, and are we to desist from our search 
for an underlying principle of nationahty and for sanctions upon 
which all nationalities may base their claims for recognition? We 
are depressed by the answer of history. Nevertheless, history in 
so far as it records the development of ideas and the attempt to 
give them practical form and effect must be our instructor. Let 
us, therefore, examine and classify what we may agree to be the 
main interests of nationality, testing each interest in the innumer- 
able retorts which history offers us, and at the same time bearing 
in mind that however imperfectly it may interpret t'lem in action, 
our race is capable of following its ideals with sustained intensity 
through long periods. 

The commonly accepted factors of nationality may be stated 
as the following: 

(a) Racial identity or a reasonable homogeneousness of 

race 

(b) Identity of language 

(c) Unity of religion 

(d) A symmetrical and healthy development of commerce 

and industry 

(e) A uniform theory of government 

What do we mean by racial identity or a reasonable homo- 



148 The Annals of the American Academy 

geneity of race? There is abroad, especially in this country, a 
belief that without racial identity and homogeneity of origin and 
development the national spirit will not thrive and animate a people. 
It is true, those who are most apprehensive of the failure of the 
national spirit to guide and strengthen the United States have been 
alarmed by the fact that the population of the republic has been 
increased and is increasing, not through the expansion of the original 
racial element, but rather through the accretion of every branch of 
the Indo-European races and of many non-European branches. 
They labor breathlessly to bring about a fusion, an assimilation of 
these elements. They would welcome the greatest possible inter- 
mixture of race in order that the resultant product should find all 
its constituent racial tendencies neutralized and subordinated to 
those of its environment. But the tragedy of the "melting pot" 
theory is not its ineffectiveness so much as its superfluity. The 
greatest peoples in history, those most conscious of their aspirations 
towards unity, and which stand out so strongly in Greece, in Rome, 
in Spain, in Germany, in Ireland, have had no racial identity or 
excl'usiveness of origin. They have severally welcomed races as 
diverse as the Arab, the Celt, the Teuton, the Scandinavian, the 
Etruscan, the Thracian. The national spirit in each case has been 
strong enough to impose language and ways of living, religious out- 
look, unity of purpose and its own fervent conviction of identity 
upon the new elements, often not seeking to do it but rather repelling 
them. In such cases it has been an invariable rule that the fullest 
and freest contribution of racial talents and excellencies has deter- 
mined the formula of the nation's success. This is not to say that 
prejudice and internal difficulty and strife have not existed, but 
rather to say that in spite of these obstacles and many more, the 
newer racial elements have been fused and assimilated if at all, not 
so much by the stamp of administration, as by the attracting power 
of a stronger character and higher standards of individual life. 

The interest which we associated with identity of language is 
one that appears to the mind at the first consideration of nationality. 
Many difficulties in the way of the creation of a strong national 
state are removed by the existence of a common language under- 
standing. The part of literature in molding and strengthening 
national feeling cannot be over-emphasized ; and the influence of the 
daily press today in standardizing language must not be overlooked, 



The Interests and Rights of Nationality 149 

even though it be less than one would expect in view of the ubi- 
quity of the press. Again the national systems of education have 
served as an effective means for the development of a national 
feeling through uniform instruction in language and literature 
devised and imposed by a single authority. Business men, pro- 
fessional men and the journalistic fashioners of our ready-made 
opinions receive their higher literary training and their ability to 
set the standards of our speech in learned institutions where specu- 
lation on the duty of intense nationalism is indulged in with facility 
and in abundance. None the less, nations have grown great and 
national feeling has been intense and evenly distributed without 
uniform regard for language standards. Any of the great European 
nations will afford examples to those well acquainted with them of a 
surprising diversity of dialect and popular speech, to say nothing 
of bi-Hngual Belgium and tri-lingual Switzerland, famihar for their 
profound sense of national unity. Even France and Germany and 
England would suffice, to say nothing of the radical language dif- 
ferences which prevail in Hungary, in Finland, in Russia and in 
Spain. I do not refer to separatist movements such as the Catalan, 
but to the many distinct dialects which make up any one of these 
countries, distinguished in our day for their thorough nationalism. 
At times the idea of nationality has survived when the nation has 
lost or nearly lost its language; English-speaking Ireland is hardly 
less conscious of its ineradicable distinctness than if only the Celtic 
tongue were heard within its shores. Ireland's ballads have had 
their widest influence in nourishing hope of freedom and memories 
of oppression, in their Enghsh translations; and the work of political 
parties has been done in English. Despite the apparent plasticity 
of the Jewish race it retains an amazing sense of its exclusiveness 
and aloofness often with but the faintest grip upon the common 
tongue of the race. Is there then an interest of language? History's 
answer seems to show unmistakably that the ideal of nationality 
involves the notion of a common tongue adorned and inspired with 
the literature which properly expresses the hopes and aspirations of 
the people. But history shows too that this incidental notion of 
identity of language is but a rare element in assisting to achieve the 
freest development of nationality. Apparently nations can get on 
very well with a variety of dialects so long as superior interests of 
association keep together the groups which use them. 



150 The Annals of the American Academy 

There is a national interest, we are told, in the existence of 
harmonious criteria in philosophy, ethics and theology. In these 
days perhaps this argument is glossed over because again we have 
inherited inextricable difficulties from preceding centuries. Even 
where the theory of a harmonious outlook on hfe and religion rises 
above the crudest interpretations of the formula cuius regio, eius 
religio, it has attained only to the height of the national "genius." 
The national and mechanical state is religion enough for its sub- 
jects, if it could but have its way. So far as any portion of a people 
may subscribe to an international and supernatural religious faith, 
the force and vigor of the nationalism of that people is correspond- 
ingly weakened. An interest in rehgious unity, therefore, that is, 
the interest in the state regulation and measure of rehgious aspira- 
tions, would seem to be indispensable to the truly vigorous nation, 
but, fortunately for the human race, history gives no encourage- 
ment to those who make devotion to nationality synonymous with 
worship of the state. An interest there is in a religious harmony 
of strong convictions and intolerant not of faulty judgment and 
clouded vision, but rather of negation of principles, and of human 
pride. This interest, moreover, is one of nationality, but it is not an 
interest of nationalism. Its satisfaction calls for the fullest contri- 
bution by each race, by each individual, of the best in thought and 
character to the good of mankind. Such an interest can be assured 
by no national and material formulas; and those who seek to inter- 
pret it must sacrifice alike rationalism and nationahsm. Every at- 
tempt to ignore rehgion and a moral conception of the universe and 
of the significance of life, has ended in sophism, in materiahsm, in 
decay, in horror. Every attempt to destroy or oppress the Catholic 
Church has made it more intensely distinct and international; every 
attempt to bend it to the uses of states and persons has been reacted 
against even more strongly by the innate vitality of religious con- 
viction. 

Again, the interest of a proper distribution of economic bur- 
dens presupposes a symmetrical and healthy development of com- 
merce and industry in any one national group. ''Self-sufficiency" 
and "economic independence" are the watchwords of today, sig- 
nificantly indicating our recrudescent emphasis upon nationahsm. 
We are told, and it is true, no doubt, that a nation must produce, 
refine and distribute every element essential to the continuity and 



The Interests and Rights of Nattonaltty 151 

protection of its national integrity, material and spiritual. It 
would follow, therefore, that a real interest of nationality would be 
a well-rounded economic regime with not too much emphasis on any 
product — agricultural, mineral or manufactured — but rather a 
precise balancing of all the elements which go to make up a civihzed 
community. In order that skill or natural advantage shall not 
again (as it is alleged they have done) cause us to grow unconscious 
from day to day of our racial barriers, it is proposed now to abrogate 
certain economic laws and to subordinate all rules, however familiar, 
to the superior interests of nationality. This call for economic 
solidarity is an inevitable accompaniment of nationalist movements. 
We have only to glance through history to hnd reaffirmation of our 
instinctive thought that the world and its civilization are a piece, 
both in duration and in extent; that as history is an uninterrupted 
causal chain, so the material world which we view at any given 
instant is an economic tableau constructed with an exquisite nicety 
and inter-relation which the human mind cannot grasp, much less 
succeed in altering by futile attempts at isolation of one or another 
portion. 

Has nationality an interest in a uniform theory of government? 
It would seem that the concept of nationality, that is to say, the 
concept of identity of interests, necessarily involves unobstructed 
devising of the method by which nationality will fulfill, or at least 
express, its purpose in the world. Unless a people have an oppor- 
tunity adequately to direct their own destiny regardless of their 
neighbors, they cannot serve as the model of a successful nation; 
and it is obviously impossible for the sense of direction of their 
destiny to be national unless this sense be accurately apprehended 
and interpreted. A uniform theory of government would seem, 
therefore, to be necessary; there must be a conviction that one 
method of government and one alone will correctly interpret and 
permit to be carried into effect the high designs and purposes of the 
nation. But again, too, history reassures us. The ideal of na- 
tionahty would seem to have been far too much for weak human 
nature if it had involved the acceptance of a uniform theory of 
government, and above all of any particular theory of government, 
as an indispensable condition of its reaUzation. Perhaps there is 
some truth in the statement that the more uniform the acceptance 
of any theory of government the less success judged from any point 



152 The Annals of the American Academy 

of view that theory will have of being carried into effect by that 
people. The history of human freedom is a history of human dis- 
cipline, but not a discipline imposed by martinet or philosopher 
upon the individual. It is the record of contest between alterna- 
tives and the acceptance of either only after tested conviction. The 
minority is as likely to be right as the majority. Indeed, in the 
struggle for right the minority is more likely -to be right than the 
majority, influenced as it must be by the gravity of the consequences 
of its contentiousness. It would seem, therefore, that again history 
shows itself indifferent to the categorical and inherent requirement 
of nationality that a people define and maintain a common theory 
of government. Whatever good the whole concept of nationality 
may have contributed to civilization and to the uplift of mankind 
has been accomplished with but little success in carrying into effect 
uniform theories of government. The consent of the governed or the 
rule of the best will in the future as they have in the past represent 
the widest divergence of views on the subject of government, and 
no aspiration of national integration will succeed in welding them. 
It is in their clash and contest that there lies the hope of progress 
of individual disciphne and effort, of the eventual contribution by 
national and political units of the world to the cause of internation- 
alism, of what today we may discern to have been contributed to 
the best nationahsm by the divergent racial groups composing our 
various peoples. 

For again, we repeat, history, that is, the world and its civiliza- 
tion, is of a piece in extension and in duration. The immutable 
truth which illuminates the thought and conduct of an individual 
is but a facet of the same eternal gem which energizes and inspires 
the racial and political unit. The truth of the humble worshipper 
of God is the truth of the majestic processes of international rela- 
tions. The aspiration of the human soul to the eternal oneness of 
truth is what animates the noblest aspirations of nations; but our 
inarticulateness in transmitting thought and the material conditions 
of our common life render dark and uncertain the expression of 
those social and national thoughts and aspirations. The farmer 
tilling the rugged, reluctant soil of Castile, apprehends the nature 
of his task, and knows that to it he must adjust himself and his 
ways in order to escape failure. No less the nation must apprehend 



A Message from Syria 153 

the laws which will govern its development, and realize how complete 
the disaster if these standards be not observed. 

In the onenc-sti of truth, in the universality of history, there is 
provided an ample satisfaction for all the aspirations of nationality. 
Wherein those aspirations reflect the light of truth, just so far does 
history record their providential transmutation into interests and 
their fulfillment, without recourse to the unsuccessful artifice of 
nationalism. 

"A MESSAGE FROM SYRIA" 

By Mrs. Layyah A. Barakat, 

Philadelphia. 

I am a mere insignificant woman in the midst of this intelligent 
and scientific body, and I represent a little country — Syria— but I 
have a heart that has been given enlargement by the American 
Christians. I was only a barefooted Mount Lebanon girl. My 
father, my graiidfather, my uncles and many of my people laid 
down their lives for their country. ]\Iy people today are suffering 
under the yoke of the blood-thirsty and cruel Turks, and for all I 
know — for two years I haven't heard a word from my voiyown — my 
people have probably died from starvation, for no other reason 
than that they seek freedom and Christianity. 

Syria is the country that gave you the Bible; Syria, the country 
that gave you the Christ; Syria, the cradle of Christianity. Before 
the discovery of America we had only one-half of the globe and we 
thought it was the whole world, and we looked to my little country 
as the very center of that world. To that center the Christ Jesus 
came; from that center the Christ sent his golden rule throughout 
the world. But since the discovery of America we have another 
half of the globe and we find America the new center. We expect 
the light to reflect back from this very center to our own, to send her 
Christ's golden rule, that Syria may have freedom and may have 
liberty, that Syria may be a democratic nation. They arc longing 
for it. What can w^e do to help them? 

I am one that was redeemed by the pennies of a Philadelphia 
Sunday School. It was the pennies that went to my native land 
from the hands of the consecrated American children that made me 



154 The Annals of the American Academy 

what I am. You sent us missionaries; you taught us democracy; 
you opened our eyes; you made us beheve that we are worthy of 
freedom; will you leave us alone now to perish? We plead with 
you. God is using you now and is going to use you yet for greater 
things. America is the best country under the sun. 

The entry of the United States into the world war is to re- 
lieve the oppressed people and to uphold democracy. Surely the 
people of Syria are one of the most oppressed under the despotic 
rule of the Turks, and they long for the privilege of self-government. 
This right has been taken from them and they now appeal to this 
great nation to help break the yoke from their shoulders and make 
them free. America can do it if she only will. 

The glorious American flag I love; it protected me from the 
sword of the Turk when I was but three years old. It protected 
my poor widowed mother. It protected me in 1882 when I came 
from Egypt, a refugee. I ran away barefooted from Egypt and 
found refuge under this flag. I arrived at the foot of Washington 
Avenue, Philadelphia, without money, without friends, without 
language — a stranger in a strange land — and I was taken in by the 
true Americans. God bless America. God raise America higher. 

One of our eminent professors has said, "The world needs a 
new philosophy ; the philosophy of this great century must go to the 
world." It is not philosophy that the world wants. The world 
wants something that man has not yet gotten — the world wants re- 
hgion; the woi'ld wants God. But you may say. What is rehgion? 
Religion is the presence of God in the soul of man, and when man 
has the presence of God in his soul he will help the weak and lift 
up the fallen. 

Where is Assyria and her art and science? Where is Babylon 
and her power? Where is Nineveh and her great and wonderful 
works? Where is Egypt and her education? They have gone, and 
nothing but ruins are left to tell us what they once were. They 
rejected God and God rejected them and put them out of existence. 
This shows us that philosophy and education cannot perpetuate 
nations, but we need the golden rule of the Son of God to bring the 
golden age for the life of man. 



The Bohemian Question 155 

THE BOHEMIAN QUESTION 

By Charles Pergler, 
Cresco, Iowa. 

The exit of Turkey from Europe is now a question of a short 
time. Russia is no more an autocracy, and henceforth mil be a 
democratically governed country. Thus remains unsolved only 
one major international problem involving the rights of small 
nations, speaking of nations in the ethnical sense and as distinguished 
from states. The allied note to President Wilson demands the 
liberation of Italians, Slavs, Roumanians and Czecho-Slovaks 
from foreign domination. The Czechs and Slovaks ask for the 
reconstruction of an independent Bohemian-Solvak state. All 
this postulates the dissolution, or at least a very serious diminution, 
of Austria-Hungary. 

The federalization of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has be- 
come impracticable, if not wholly impossible. The case of Switzer- 
land is hardly in point. Mr. Toynbee defines nationalitj^ as a will 
to cooperate, and a nation as a group of men bound together by the 
immanence of this impulse in each individual. The Swiss have 
developed this will to cooperate, while in Austria it always has been 
unknown, and conditions are such that to hope even for its inception 
would be wholly Utopian. Nor can we point to the United States 
of America as an example, because we are after all a nation formed 
by the free will of immigrants of various origins, and with an under- 
lying basis of uniformity of outlook, uniformity of language, and 
uniformity of culture, furnished by the original settlers in this 
country who came from England. 

Nationality is the modern state-forming force. To disregard 
it is to stand in the path of an ultimately irresistible force. The 
historical process of unification of various nationalities, which began 
with the German and Italian aspirations for a national state, ulti- 
mately will be consummated. If it is not completed now, the 
world is due for another convulsion within a relatively short time. 
When this consummation takes place, that Austrian territory in- 
habited by Italians will be joined to Italy, the Roumanians will be 
gathered in one state, there will come into being a Yougo-slav 
(South-Slav) state, and Poland will be independent or autonomous. 



156 The Annals of the American Academy 

If Austria then remains in existence, the only nations left within 
it will be the Germans, the Magyars and the Czecho-Slovaks. 

In this "small Austria" the Czechs and Slovaks would con- 
stitute a minority ; the Germans and Magyars would again combine 
to dominate and oppress the Czecho-Slovaks. Austria even so 
mutilated would continue to be a source of strength to Germany, 
and would form a basis for another attempt to realize pan-German 
plans of middle Europe and the consequent conquest of the world. 
The internal conditions of such a state would necessarily be volcanic, 
and Austria would continue to be a menace to European peace. 
We should thus be confronted with a situation which President 
Wilson in his address to the Senate described as the ferment of 
spirit of whole populations fighting subtly and constantly for an 
opportunity to freely develop. To again paraphrase another of the 
President's statements, the world could not be at peace because its 
life would not be stable, because the will would be in rebellion, be- 
cause there would not be tranquillity of spirit, because there would 
not be a sense of justice, of freedom and of right. 

The Austrian question is the Turkish problem in another form. 
Austria can be no more federalized than European Turkey. To 
permit Austria to exist in any form when this war is concluded, is 
merely to delay the solution of a problem that will never down ; and 
in the life of nations, as well as individuals, delay and procrastina- 
tion, the tendency to postpone a final decision, are crimes for which 
penalties are sure to follow. We have seen what this penalty is: 
a war devastating civilized countries. 

The suggestions made in certain quarters that a federal con- 
stitution in Austria be one of the conditions of peace shows the 
futility of the hopes to federalize Austria. Those knowing Austro- 
Hungarian conditions need not be convinced that the empire's 
ruling classes would never carry out such conditions in spirit, and 
perhaps not even in letter ; the world would not go to war immedi- 
ately to force Austria to comply with such a condition of peace, 
and thus the germs of a future war, brought about by our failure to 
see clearly now, would be permitted to exist. 

A liberal Russia will be what Russia always claimed to have 
been: a protector of the small Slav nationalities. With Russia 
liberalized, the spirit of nationalism, which must not be confounded 
with chauvinism, will be intensified, and Russia will never again 



The Bohemian Question 157 

look with equanimity upon the Asiatic oppression of Slovaks by the 
Magyars, to cite a single illustration. This again shows the neces- 
sity of a final solution, and the danger of compromise and temporiz- 
ing. 

The Czechs have proven the possibility of independence by 
their economic and cultural development. Economically and 
financially the Czech countries are the richest of the present Austrian 
"provinces," and when freed of oppressive taxation, discriminating 
in favor of financially "passive" Austrian lands, the independent 
Bohemian-Slovak state would be even richer. At the present time 
62.7 per cent of the burden of Austrian taxation is borne by the 
Czech countries, while the rest of Austria carries only 37.3 per cent. 

It should be emphasized that the economic strength of the new 
states would be reinforced by the undeveloped resources of Slovakia, 
the inhabitants of which form a part of the same ethnic group as the 
Bohemians, and desire to be joined with the Bohemians in one state. 
This presents no difiiculty, since the Slovaks live in one part of the 
Hungarian kingdom, and are not scattered in isolated groups. For 
that matter, the world has about realized that in provoking the 
great war the Magyar oligarchy was particeps criminis; this war 
was not only a German war, but it was a Magyar war as well. 

The Bohemian-Slovak state would thus consist of the lands of 
the crown of St. Wenceslaus, viz., Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and 
Slovakia, so that it would have a population of over twelve million 
inhabitants, and a territorial extent of fifty thousand English 
square miles, while Belgium has only eleven thousand, three hun- 
dred seventy-three square miles. Therefore it would not be a small 
state, being in fact eighth among twenty-two European states. 

After all, the belief in the necessity of large states is largely a 
product of German mechanistic political philosophy and political 
economy. Already voices have arisen that certain states have 
become too large to manage. Mr. Louis D. Brandeis has shown 
that even under modern conditions certain business units can be- 
come so large as to be physically incapable of successful administra- 
tion. May this not be equally true of states, especially polyethnic 
states? 

If it be said that it is hard to reconstruct a state, or organize 
a new one, permit me to answer that it was not easy to organize the 
United States of America, and the period of experimentation under 



158 The Annals of the American Academy 

the Articles of Confederation was full of trials and tribulations. 
For a long time it was a question whether in America we should 
have an aggregation of loose-jointed states, or whether a foundation 
for a real nation would be laid. Yet those architects of human 
society, to borrow an expression of Walter Lippmann, relative to 
Alexander Hamilton, who after our revolution held in their hands 
the destiny of this nation, did not shrink from undertaking the task. 
It is objected occasionally that the new state would have no 
direct access to the sea. Access to the sea is important, but, with 
modern methods of communication, not as important as it was in 
the past. The sea after all is a means of communication; whether 
these means be the ocean, or the railroad, it makes little difference 
if the country is confronted by high tariffs. Again, the solution 
of this problem has been suggested by a number of writers, and by 
President Wilson in his address to the Senate, wherein he advocates 
the granting of economical rights of way to landlocked states in the 
following language : 

So far as practicable, moreover, every great people now struggling toward 
a fuU development of its resources and of its powers should be assured a direct 
outlet to the great highways of the sea. Where this cannot be done by the cession 
of territory it can no doubt be done by the neutrahzation of direct rights of way 
under the general guarantee which will assure the peace itself. With a right 
comity of arrangement no nation need be shut away from free access to the open 
paths of the world's commerce. 

It should also be remembered that a direct connection could be 
established with the new Yougo-slav state with its harbors on the 
Adriatic. 

It is also true that the future Bohemian-Slovak state will have 
a German minority; but in central and eastern Europe hardly any 
state can be constructed without certain national minorities. In 
the present instance the minority is not as large as would seem on the 
basis of the false Austrian and Magyar statistics. But it will 
certainly be easier to safeguard the interests of a German and 
Magyar minority in a Bohemian-Slovak state than it would be to 
protect the rights of Bohemians and Slovaks in a deformed Austria, 
or to force Austria to become a federal state. 

This question of national minorities will of course have to be 
worked out in detail, but judging from the way Bohemian cities and 
communes have handled the problem of German minority schools, 



The Bohemian Question 159 

it may be safely predicted that there will be no oppression of Ger- 
man minorities, no more than there was during the centuries that 
Bohemia was an independent state. 

A leading advocate of permanent peace recently suggested that 
the question of national minorities might be solved to a large degree 
by a system of judicious exchange of such minorities, or of various 
members thereof. This gentleman had in mind the situation in 
Macedonia, but the suggestion is worth considering in other con- 
nections. For instance, Vienna has a large number of Bohemians, 
and the question of the Bohemian minority in this city has always 
been quite acute. A large number of these people might be repa- 
triated and their place taken by Germans living in Bohemia, who 
originally were colonists in any event. It goes without saying that 
such repatriation would have to be voluntary, but if once undertaken 
should be facilitated by the respective governments. 

One cannot help remarking that prior to this war those now 
worrying over the possible oppression of a German minority by a 
majority of Czecho-Slovaks were little concerned about the oppres- 
sion of the majority by the minority, which has been going on for 
centuries. It should also be noted that a policy of denationaliza- 
tion of other peoples is one peculiar almost wholly to the Germans. 
After all, there is such a thing as psychology of nations, and the 
Slavs have never been noted for attempts to impose their language 
upon other nationalities. Russia is not an exception to the rule, 
for her reactionary policies were largely due to the Junkers from 
Russian Baltic provinces and to the German bureaucracy. 

The factors thus enumerated, the right of any nation to inde- 
pendence once its possibility is demonstrated, the necessity of dis- 
solving Austria in the interests of permanent peace, I believe to be 
decisive of the Bohemian case. 

I would not even fear the joining of purely German parts of 
Austria to the German Empire. This would carry the principle 
of nationality to its logical conclusion. It would perhaps strengthen 
Germany absolutely, but very seriously weaken her relatively. 
To the German Empire would be added a few million Germans, but 
it would be deprived of the support of a much larger number of 
Slavs, who are now being made use of to fight the battles of their 
bitterest enemy. 

When we consider the Bohemian question in relation to the 



160 The Annals of the American Academy 

whole European problem of small nationalities, it is easily seen that 
it is simplicity itself, for a reconstruction of Europe in accordance 
with the principle of nationality means also the freeing of the 
French and Danes in Germany, the creation of a Yougo-slav state 
and emancipation of Poland. All these questions, whether difficult 
or easy, must be faced unflinchingly. 

Let us not forget that the Czech question is also one of restora- 
tion. The Hapsburgs were called to the Bohemian throne by the 
free will of the representatives of the Bohemian state, and they under- 
took by solemn oath and pledges to protect and safeguard the 
independence of this state. The violation of such pledges and the 
deprivation of the Czechs of independence by force, do not do away 
with their legal rights, so that the Bohemian case has the strongest 
possible legal sanction. 

The fact that the Czechs at one time had a strong and powerful 
state, well organized, is also a sufficient proof of inherent political 
capacity. 

Bismarck maintained that the power ruling Bohemia rules 
Europe. This best illustrates the importance of the Bohemian 
question as an international problem. Without an independent 
Bohemian-Slovak state permanent peace cannot be realized. 



THE RIGHTS OF THE JEWS AS A NATION 

By J. L. Magnes, 
New York. 

It is good American doctrine to hold that all nations, large and 
small, have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
But many nations, either because of their own aggression or the 
aggression of others, have found and still find that this right is 
questioned. The possible difference between today and yesterday 
is that, particularly since the aims of the present war have been 
formulated, the big nations say that they have less inclination than 
before to dispute the rights of small nations. 

Aside from political and commercial reasons, this recognition 
of the rights of small nations may be a reaction from the effects of 
our mechanistic, technical civilization. It may be that even the 



Rights of Jews 161 

big nations instinctively feel that man does not live by bread alone, 
but that in each nation, however small in number or deficient in 
mechanical efficiency, or backward in politics, there arc distinctive 
qualities of spirit, the loss of which would be a loss to the spiritual 
treasures of mankind.. But the natural right to live, and to seek 
liberty and happiness, is different from historical or political rights. 
Just what rights a nation's history gives it is questionable, and a 
matter that has usually been determined by the arbitrament of 
arms. Our discussion is an attempt to determine what the rights 
of small nations ought to be without resort to force. In order to do 
justice, this should be done for each nation by a member of that 
nation. 

Let me try to do this in a measure for the Jews. 

But the question is asked immediately: Are the Jews a nation? 

This brings us to the confusion and looseness in the use of the 
term nation. We shall probably have as many definitions of the 
term as there are nations themselves. For myself, I regard as a 
nation any considerable group who regard themselves as a nation 
as they themselves define the term. Any other conclusion is, it 
seems to me, the approved method of setting up the straw man to 
knock him down. If we examine our speech, we shall find that we 
use interchangeably the terms nation, nationality, people, race, 
ethnic group, state, citizenship, country, land. If the Academy can 
bring some order into this confusion, many persons and nations 
meaning the same thing might be spared the humiliation of fighting 
one another. Until then, all attempts must prove fatal to set up 
dogmatic criteria by which a "nation" is to stand or fall, or to be 
measured, in order to be entitled to the rights of a nation. It may 
be that, measured by the standards of the big nations, the small 
nations ought not to be called nations at all. But that the small 
nations are an existing fact and are something or other, by whatever 
name they be called, is clear. It therefore seems to me that we 
are not far afield if we regard as nations such considerable groups of 
persons as regard themselves as nations, however they themselves 
may define the term. 

Take the Jews for example. Not all of them regard them- 
selves as a nation. Yet the overwhelming majority — some milhons, 
in fact — do. And what is of equal importance, these milHons want 
the Jews to continue to be a nation, i. e., they have the national 



162 The Annals of the American Academy 

will-to-live. Under these circumstances, is it not rather academic 
to question whether or not the Jews are among the small nations? 

Many Jews object to classifying the Jews as a nation because 
the word has political implications. In American usage we say that 
a man cannot have a dual nationality, i. e., he cannot owe political 
allegiance to more than one state. The word nation and its deriva- 
tives are so bound up with the conception of political allegiance 
to the state that many Jews fear that the termnation asappliedtothe 
Jews would only subject them to the unjust charge of owing alle- 
giance not only to the American State, but to a Jewish political 
nationality as well. From this point of view the use of the term 
nation in connection with the Jew is, indeed, confusing and apt to 
lead to misunderstanding. Those Jews who regard themselves as 
a nation certainly do not wish to imply a divided political allegiance 
on the part of any Jew. 

If the term people instead of nation is used of the Jews, the 
matter becomes much simpler. What "national" elements has 
this people? 

The Jews may be said to be of the same race. This does not 
mean that they are a pure race, or, indeed, that there is any such 
thing as a pure race. Nor does it mean to imply any mystic 
quality in the conception of race. It means merely that for many 
centuries the Jews have, as far as they were able, married among 
themselves. In fact, their religion in its earliest records and up 
to the present day makes it imperative that they should. 

The Jews have a distinctive language, the Hebrew. Whereas 
many Jews are ignorant of Hebrew, this language has never ceased 
to be a spoken language among them. Moreover, it has always 
been and it now is their chief language of literary and spiritual 
expression. It is an impressive bond of unity among Jews. But 
not only have they a "national" language. They seem also to 
have a "national" language sense, ^. e., they have in many respects 
(and for this they have been ridiculed and condemned — unjustly, in 
my opinion) made languages out of the old Greek, the Persian, the 
Spanish and the German. The Jewish-German, for example, i. e., 
the Yiddish, is a distinctive Jewish language spoken by millions of 
Jews, and by Jews alone. 

The Jews have a common history, i. e., they are conscious of a 
pQmmon pastj artcf their present day life is made up in large measure 



HiGHTS OF Jews i6^ 

of elements derived from the past. The attitude towards them 
of their non- Jewish neighbors everywhere has always been and now 
is about the same, i. e., sometimes individual, Jews are judged as 
individuals in accordance with their merits or weaknesses, but as 
a rule the Jews are judged as a class, particularly when judged in a 
hostile sense. This attitude of their neighbors gives rise to common 
interests, particularly material interests, among Jews. But quite 
aside from this attitude of their non-Jewish neighljors, thej^ have 
developed common spiritual interests out of their inner life. The 
Jewish religion is the chief of these. This religion, in addition to 
the highest concepts of a universal character, is composed of a "na- 
tional" liturgy, "national" traditions, "national" ceremonials, 
"national" hohdays, a "national" literature, "national" aspira- 
tions, and a "national" religious life. Aside from the specifically 
religious, the Jews have also developed a "national" culture, willi 
many of the aspects of the national cultures of other "nations." 

A people with so many distinctly "national" elements would be 
regarded as a full fledged "nation" by everyone using the term, 
if it were on its own soil and under its own government. Is it 
among the rights of such a people to lay claim to its own soil and 
its own government? 

The Jews being a peculiar people, the answer to this question 
must be peculiar. It is yes and no. 

The Jews are to be found in almost every country. Their na- 
tional rights there must be dependent upon the rights of the other 
nations, peoples, races or communities in each respective state. 
In Austro-Hungary, where the rights of nationalities to national 
life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness are constitutionally 
recognized, the Jews, living in compact masses in Galicia and 
Bukowina, have the right to be recognized as a nation. The same 
holds true of Poland and Lithuania, and I have no doubt that the 
democracy of Russia will recognize the rights of the Jewish nation, 
just as the rights of all the small nations making up the Russian 
State will be recognized. Just what political rights are here involved 
must be dependent upon the general makeup of the state and its 
attitude towards its constituent nationalities. In the United 
States, where the state recognizes only the rights of individuals 
and not of nations, nationalities, races or peoples, the rights of the 
small "nations" here, the Jews among them, must necessarily 



164 The Annals of the American Academy 

have no political aspect whatsoever, but must be entirely cultural — • 
or spiritual — in their nature. 

The nearest approach to a territory or a government of their 
own for the Jews can be had, if at all, in Palestine, the old land of 
Israel, the Jews' old home, the repeopling of which has ever been 
one of the national aspirations of the Jews. This does not mean, 
necessarily, that all the Jews must be centred there, or that there 
must be an independent Jewish State or Jewish government. It 
means merely that those Jews who think they can serve their own 
people and the world best by contributing their energies to the 
creation in Palestine of a Jewish Centre for the Jewish people should 
be given every opportunity to do so under a government liberal 
enough, be it republican or monarchical, be it Turkish, English, 
French, Russian, German — to guarantee them freedom and liberty 
to develop the Jewish soul and the Jewish life and the Jewish hope, 
to the utmost. 

Some of us Jews beHeve in these various rights for the small 
Jewish nation, because we believe in the Jews themselves, because 
we believe that the Jewish people has within it spiritual forces 
which should be developed for the sake of all mankind. The 
Jews, preserving their identity as an international people with a 
national centre in Palestine, replenishing the Jewish life every- 
where with beauty, ideas, spirituality, should and can serve man- 
kind as one of the greatly needed exponents of justice and of peace. 

As to the rights of the Jews, therefore, as one of the small 
nations, I would say that: 

1 . Wherever they are, they have the right to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness. 

2. In states which are federations of nations and where the 
Jews live in considerable numbers, such as Austro-Hungary, 
Poland, Lithuania, Russia, they have the same rights — political 
and otherwise — as other nations. 

3. In Palestine, the ancient home of the Jewish people, they 
have the right to develop a Jewish centre for the whole Jewish 
People. What political forms this centre is to assume must remain 
a secondary matter, as along as, in any event, they have complete 
freedom to live and to develop their Jewish soul to the utmost. 



The Republics of the Caribbean 165 

THE RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS IN AMERICA 

THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN 

By Oswald Garrison Villard, 
President of the New York Evening Post Company. 

In his recent address to Congress, which led to the declaration 
of war against Germany, Woodrow Wilson declared that 

peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We 
have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek 
no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for sacrifices we shall 
freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We 
shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and 
freedom of nations can make them. 

With these sentiments as a declaration of national policy, every 
American must agree, whatever may be his feelings as to the present 
war and the necessity thereof. For the line of conduct the Presi- 
dent has thus laid down in these beautiful phrases is the one which 
the United States should surely follow in all its dealings with any of 
the nations with which we are brought into contact. They are par- 
ticularly apropos at this time, when we are entering into closer and 
closer relations in deahng with the republics to the south of us. 
Just because they are so weak as compared with our own giant 
strength it is necessary that we should base our policy towards 
them upon the highest ethical and moral standards, coupled with 
true unselfishness and without any thoughts as to personal profit 
for the United States because of our philanthropic action. 

The very highmindedness of this statement of Mr. Wilson's 
makes this an opportune moment to inquire whether in our dealings 
with certain islands in the West Indies we are maintaining his stand- 
ards and ideals. It makes it possible for me to enter a plea before 
you for the need of an even more detailed declaration of American 
policy than this towards those republics in the Caribbean whose 
governments are now under American military control. Cuba, 
Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti and San Domingo are today under Amer- 
ican tutelage or controlled by governments upheld by American 
bayonets. But I shall deal in this paper only with the situation in 
the sister republics of Haiti and San Domingo. Of these, the latter, 
after an independent existence as a republic of seventy-two years, 



166 The Annals of the American Academy 

has been taken over by force by our government; while of the inde- 
pendent government of Haiti — a negro republic of 112 years' stand- 
ing, during which time no foreigner was ever attacked or injured, 
no white woman ever assaulted, and no legation ever violated save 
once — only a toppling shell of a government, which may crumble 
at any moment, remains. My appeal is for a definite declaration 
of intention as to these and the other republics, because there could 
be no more fitting time than this, when the United States is entering 
the world war for the avowed purpose of driving out despotism, 
crushing autocracy and upholding the rights of smaller nations, and 
because one is vitally needed, if we are to hold the full confidence 
and friendship of Latm America. 

What are we going to do to the smaller nations in the Carib- 
bean, whom we are one by one taking over, because their govern- 
mental methods and results do not appeal to us? Plainly, we are 
drifting there. Our influence is extending rapidly by the acts of 
both the dominating political parties, and yet nothing is being done 
by reason of a deliberate national consciousness or a declared policy. 
In neither of the last political platforms is there any statement of a 
behef that the. United States should go on deliberately extending 
its influence in the Caribbean, or any reference whatever to Haiti 
and San Domingo. If this is manifest destiny, it is an extraordi- 
narily voiceless destiny. If it is an unconscious national drift, it 
has all the foreboding and the terrifying silence of an irresistible 
glacier. The American electorate has never voted upon it. It has 
alternately applauded the "taking" by force and trickery of Pan- 
ama and the violation of a treaty with a small nation with which we 
were at peace, and the Mobile speech of President Wilson, in which 
he declared to the sister republics to the south of us that: 

" I want to take this occasion to say, too, that the United States 
will not again seek to secure one additional foot of territory by 
conquest." 

In his dealing with the sorely tried Republic of Mexico he nobly 
lived up to this doctrine, despite the bloody blunder of Vera Cruz. 
On the other hand, we have just witnessed the purchase of the 
Danish West Indies, at a fabulous price, ''additional territory" to 
the south of us, without its calhng for any noteworthy comment in 
press or public or in Congress, either for or against the proposal. 
Forgotten is the wonderful fight made by Sumner in opposition to 



The Republics of the Caribbean 167 

the treaty urged by President Grant for the annexation of San 
Domingo at the bargain price of $1,500,000 — the cost of islands 
having risen with the price of living. With Mr. Wilson the decid- 
ing argument for the purchase of the Danish Islands was reported to 
be the belief that, if we did not purchase them at once, Germany 
would — even in the midst of an overwhelming war — which recalls 
the fact that when Grant was balked of his desire to get hold of San 
Domingo, he declared: "If we abandon the project, I now firmly 
believe that a free port will be negotiated for by European nations 
in the Bay of Samana." 

President Grant made even more specific the spectre of foreign 
aggrandizement, which has done duty so often, together with the 
threat of a supposedly impending violation of the Monroe Doctrine, 
to take us a step farther along the highway imperialistic, by assert- 
ing to the Senate: "I have information which I believe reliable 
that a European power stands ready now to offer $2,000,000 for the 
possession of Samana Bay alone, if refused by us." But that was 
in 1870, and we had not yet reached that stage in our congressional 
development when it has apparently become a party duty to vote 
what the President asks, without regard to individual opinion or 
conscience, and so Sumner won on the merits of the argument, pre- 
cisely as Seward was beaten overwhelmingly in 1867, when he advo- 
cated the purchase of the Danish West Indies for $7,500,000. 

Times have changed; so we took over the administration of 
the San Domingan customs houses in 1907 by treaty, solely in order 
to get her out of debt and to prevent revolutions by safeguarding 
the customs-house receipts, which were the chief booty of the peri- 
odic revolters. At first it seemed to work well, but then revolutions 
began again and it was openly said that the trouble was that we 
had not taken for ourselves power enough. Next, a treaty was 
forced upon this unwilling people, by shutting off of their revenues, 
and thus compelHng them to surrender to us their last shred of inde- 
pendence. When the government fell by reason of inanition, we 
placed a naval dictator in charge in the person of Captain Harry S. 
Knapp, who began his reign in the name of the American democ- 
racy by suppressing some of the native newspapers which criticised 
our acts and by installing a censorship all his own that forbade even 
the newspapers in the United States to receive a single word that 
was not edited by himself. This autocratic ruling lasted only until 



168 The Annals of the American Academy 

the press of this country laid the facts before Secretary Daniels when 
the order was promptly revoked. But the native newspapers, with 
one exception, the Listin Diario, having no one to speak for them 
in the seats of the mighty, are reported to have "stayed dead." 
Captain Knapp's cabinet consists of naval officers and marine 
officers, and there is no congress, no free press, no effective force to 
hold him in check. Foreigners are gobbling up the best of the cane 
lands. 

In Haiti we have forced a convention on a free people by giving 
them their choice between a treaty surrendering to the United States 
the collection and disbursement of their customs receipts, and the 
creation and control of a constabulary. Having signed the conven- 
tion, we then imposed upon them a military occupation, having 
refrained from paying the interest on their foreign and domestic loans 
while using $95,000 a month of their income to pay the costs of our 
occupation, which the Haitian people detest, particularly our rigid 
martial law. It is only just to say that this pohcy was entered upon 
by our State Department with real intent to be of service, because 
it felt that the country was in chaos and anarchy, and that the foreign 
bondholders, through their governments, would soon insist that either 
the United States should make order in the republic or let some out- 
sider do it. I am not here to impugn motives, but merely to record 
facts, and the fact is that the government and the people of Haiti, 
who always paid the interest on their foreign loans, are now on the 
point of bankruptcy and their government is on the verge of being 
broken down by us, while the Washington authorities delay the 
payment of interest on all loans and the refunding of the total in- 
debtedness, which, despite years of revolution, is only $32,000,000. 
They take pride, and justly so, that our marine officers have created 
a splendid gendarmerie of sixteen hundred men, have built and 
repaired a number of roads, and given the peasantry a sense of 
security which has not been theirs for years. If there was chaos, 
that is at an end, and there is that much clear gain. 

But granting, for the sake of argument, all that may be urged 
as to the necessity of our intervening in these two republics, what 
then? Are we sailing by any chart? What course have we laid 
out? Is there any definite governmental aim? If so, it has not been 
stated. Neither the Republican nor Democratic platforms of 1916, 
I repeat, made the slightest reference to either republic or our rela- 



The Republics of the Caribbean 169 

tions to them. Is there any social or educational survey of the 
republics on foot? None. Is there any recognition of the neces- 
sity of differentiating between the Haitians, who are French in cul- 
ture, and the San Dominigans, who are Spanish in culture? A pro- 
posal to send an American commission to Haiti privately financed 
was spurned a year ago by the State Department as likely to hurt 
the Haitian feehngs if it should undertake a study of the underl3dng 
economic and social causes of the unrest of the past- — those feelings, 
which, we are told, were in nowise disturbed when we forced the 
surrender treaty upon them! There is no definite national declara- 
tion as to how long we shall stay, how often we shall renew the 
treaties, or whether we shall ever let go. Neither President nor 
Congress has spoken on this point, nor as to whether we hitherto 
non-militaristic Americans should or should not govern these coun- 
tries by military officials. If they are to be militarily governed, 
then by what branch of the service? Porto Rico and the Phihp- 
pines are under the War Department; the other nations in our tute- 
lage are under the navy. The Bureau of Insular Affairs is not 
yet trusted with the Virgin Islands; until the war permits a more 
leisurely arrangement, they are to be governed by an admiral on 
a makeshift basis. 

All question of a serious taking of stock is ^deferred. We shall 
not know just how much of industrial bankruptcy and depression 
and human backwardness we have purchased in the Virgin Islands 
until peace returns. And then? Then it will surely be time to 
exalt the whole question of the government of our permanent and 
temporary wards of whom the bulk of our people are so ignorant, 
to a position in which it shall have the attention it needs and de- 
serves. But how shall it be done? It is not merely a question of 
deciding whether the islands are to have military or civifian govern- 
ment; whether we shall not follow the example of England in Egypt 
in letting the natives carry on their own government under the 
oversight of a diplomatic agent-resident, in the manner of Cromer, 
It is not only a question of deciding whether Haiti and San Domingo 
are to be governed merely for the purpose of keeping order for a 
term of years and getting them out of debt, or even whether they 
are to be scientifically administered in order that their peoples shall 
really be trained in the art of self-government and be taught to 
walk, so that when we withdraw they shall not stumble and fall 



170 The Annals of the American Academy 

again. Far beyond this, first and foremost of all, is the question: 
What is it we have in our minds and hearts for them? Are we to 
be guided wholly by philanthropy, by the desire to help these small 
nations to an independent existence, as we are praying for inde- 
pendence after the war for Greece, Belgium and Serbia, or is their 
proximity to us, the wealth of their remarkable economic resources 
and their trade relationship to us, to give to our spectacles another 
hue as we look upon them? Shall the country remember what Mr. 
Wilson has said: " It is a very perilous thing to determine a foreign 
policy in the terms of material interest"? Shall the nation say with 
him : " Morality and not expediency is the thing that must guide us 
(in our relations with other nations), and we must never condone 
iniquity" — inquity even in our own attitude and policy? 

Shall the noble words of Wilson at Mobile apply only to con- 
quest in war, or shall we make them a similar self-denying ordinance 
against that form of conquest which has given us practically com- 
plete control of Haiti and San Domingo, happily with but little 
bloodshed, but a control none the less as complete as if we had let 
General Pershing march to Mexico City and let him take over the 
whole government of Mexico. Many Americans have been killed in 
Mexico and much American property damaged; no such charge lay 
against Haitians or San Dominigans. Is the difference in our policy 
towards them wholly due to their difference in extent of territory? 
Is there to be further intervention of this sort to the south of us, 
dependent upon haphazard act or as the result of a well-thought- 
out poUcy? Surely, we can all agree that the vital importance of 
these relationships, not only as to those directly affected, but in 
their very great effect upon our trade and political relations with 
Central and South America, dictates that the administration of 
these wards should be in the hands of a Cabinet officer, and each 
dependency, temporary or permanent, represented as are Porto 
Rico and the Philippines by delegates to Congress. Perhaps it 
may be well, even, to establish a House of Colonial Delegates, in 
order that their special problems may profit by mutual interchange 
of ideas and of experiences. 

Surely, some means must be devised for bringing the needs and 
desires of these very different peoples now under our care before the 
public, so that we shall not repeat in their case our nation's lamenta- 
ble record in the matter of our Indian wards; so that, for instance, 



The Republics of the Caribbean 171 

when an admiral-governor suppresses a book and all the native 
press because he does not like the contents thereof, it shall be possi- 
ble to get the facts before Congress, the government and the people. 
If such a one says, as one does today, that no native newspaper shall 
have any more right to criticize the American occupation of the 
island he controls than the Belgians have the right to criticize their 
cruel and overbearing conquerors, there should be some way of let- 
ting this be known outside the circles of officialdom, which are so 
apt to dismiss a question like this, even when it affects a funda- 
mental human liberty, one expressly guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, with a brusque: ''It serves the beggars 
right." 

In other words, the question before us is whether we are really 
going to set ourselves down to the task of governing well, according 
to the highest American tradition, these peoples who have no desire 
whatever to be governed by us and prefer to be governed poorly by 
themselves so long as they may have self-government and inde- 
pendence rather than be governed by outsiders whose culture and 
point of view in every fundamental thing are so alien. Shall we 
in the spirit of high humanity seek to establish with complete unsel- 
fishness, true democracy in these wonderful islands of Haiti and 
San Domingo, as against the autocracy of despotic or military con- 
trol? Shall we not live up to the words of President Wilson in his 
war message, that "the world must be made safe for democracy" — 
safe, let us hope he meant, even from Americans? Certainly, there 
could be no better program for our conduct in Haiti and San Do- 
mingo than the President's assertion with which I began this paper. 
It is of the utmost importance for our own standing before the world 
that the several departments of the government whose duty it is 
to carry out the details of our foreign policy should not only con- 
form to the high standards set by him, but should be still further 
committed to them by a detailed and definite promise registered in 
the eyes of all the world and before high Heaven itself. Any other 
course would surely give "aid and comfort" to the common enemy. 



172 The Annals of the American Academy 

THE RIGHTS OF SMALL AMERICAN NATIONS 
NICARAGUA AND COLOMBIA 

By Henry R. Mussey, Ph.D., 

Columbia University, New York. 

In his remarkable book on Mid-Europe, Friedrich Naumann 
sees the world of the future divided among three or four great em- 
pires — British, Russian, American and possibly Mid-European. 
By a law of inevitable social evolution, Naumann maintains, these 
great superstates attract to themselves more and more power, look- 
ing after their own interests within the world's system, becoming 
economically self-sufficient, and making the states outside helpless 

against their tariff policy, commercial intrigues, limitation of imports, metal 
monopolies, cotton trusts, against their colonial dominion and world-encircUng 
policy.^ .... Small states which cannot carry through any tariff war, but 
need daily imports and exports, must in future be registered with one of the great 
world-firms, as soon as the superfirms themselves mutually separate off from one 
another even more than they had done before the war.^ 

Of course Naumann is thinking chiefly in terms of small European 
states, but is he or is he not describing what is actually happening 
in the western world as in the eastern? Is or is not the United 
States by steady process annexing, both economically and poUtically, 
her neighbors to the south of Mexico? Whether she is or not, is 
she, at each stage of her progress, taking scrupulous care to safe- 
guard the rights of the small nations as interpreted by their spokes- 
men, and in this way avoiding any accumulation of grievances that 
may some day return to plague her? I shall confine my answer to 
the states of Nicaragua and Colombia. 

Practically everyone admits some sort of right of a country's 
inhabitants to profit by its natural riches. All Americans do hp 
service, at least, to the right of self government. They agree that a 
stronger nation in dealing with a weaker should so far as possible 
safeguard these two rights. Our Caribbean neighbors have large 
natural riches, and they have not yet made a conspicuous success of 
self government. American capital seeking profit from Caribbean 

iP. 193. 
2 P. 195. 



The Rights of Small American Nations 173 

natural resources, like foreign capital in general, has not been too 
tender of the interests of the native peoples. When it has found 
their existing governments intractable or unfriendly, it has some- 
times sought the support of our own government for a change, and 
it has not been wholly unsuccessful in such application. The great 
body of our people have neither known nor cared what was happen- 
ing to the south of us, so long as it stirred up no war that called for 
anything more than a small force of regulars. 

Nicaragua, the largest of the Central American states, has one 
unrivaled economic asset, namely, its canal route between the 
oceans. Aside from this, its riches are largely in its coffee- and cocoa- 
growing land. Its one railway is owned by the government, but a 
large New York banking house, by a loan of a million dollars, 
secured 51 per cent of the stock, and now directs the policy of the 
railroad. The same bankers similarly control the National Bank 
of Nicaragua, and they have a lien on the customs to secure certain 
loans. 

From 1894 to 1910, Jose Santos Zelaya maintained himself prac- 
tically as dictator of Nicaragua. During the last ten years of this 
period there were sixteen so-called revolutions. Zelaya was not 
satisfactory to the American interests in Nicaragua,, and finally the 
United States lent diplomatic support to the revolution that over- 
threw him in 1910. Still things did not go to suit us, or indeed any- 
one else, and in 1912 we landed 2,600 troops, did some fighting, and 
put down another revolution — all this, of course, at the request of 
the government legally constituted — with our assistance. Our high 
purpose was thus stated by the Taft administration: The United 
States 

will lend its strong moral support to the cause of legally constituted good govern- 
ment for the benefit of the people of Nicaragua The United States 

has a moral mandate to exert its influence for the]preservation of the general peace 
of Central America. 

In 1914 we again landed troops, and only by this means succeeded 
in keeping the existing government in power. 

During these same years our executive was pressing for ratifica- 
tion a treaty which would give us large control over Nicaragua. 
The first treaty came to naught, and a new one was negotiated which 
was finally ratified by our Senate early in 1916, and two months 
later, after a bitter struggle, by the Nicaraguan government. By its 



174 The Annals of the American Academy 

provisions, the United States, in return for a payment of $3,000,000, 
secured: (1) the exclusive right to construct a canal via the San Juan 
River and the Nicaraguan lakes; (2) the lease of land for a naval base 
on Nicaraguan territory on the Gulf of Fonseca; and (3) a lease of 
Great Corn Island and Little Corn Island in the Caribbean Sea. 
(It may be recalled that the United States paid Panama $10,000,000 
and $250,000 a year for the Panama Canal route.) Costa Rica, 
Honduras and Salvador at once brought suit against Nicaragua in 
the Central American Court of Justice, alleging that the treaty 
violated their existing rights. 

The Central American Court of Justice was estabhshed at our 
instance in 1907 as a means of bringing to an end the disastrous wars 
that have ravaged the Central American states for a century. The 
court is composed of one member from each of the five states, and is 
authorized to hear and dispose of all questions between them, and 
under certain conditions, cases between them and other states. At 
the same time that the court was established, Honduras, the central 
and most belHgerent state of the five, was at its own suggestion 
placed in a state of neutrality, guaranteed by its neighbors. The 
establishment of the court and the neutralization of Honduras to- 
gether offered a promising means of keeping the peace among these 
troubled states, and the very first decision of the court, rendered the 
year after its establishment, prevented a war. The court is perhaps 
the most promising agency of its kind in existence. 

Costa Rica's complaint was that Nicaragua had violated certain 
treaty rights of Costa Rica by agreeing without her consent to the 
canalization of the San Juan River, a boundary river whose waters 
reach the sea through Costa Rican territory. Costa Rica, as a 
lower riparian owner, is of course interested in anything that affects 
the waters of the river. The court, by a vote of four to one, Nicara- 
gua alone dissenting, upheld the claim of Costa Rica that Nicaragua 
had violated the right of Costa Rica, but said that it could make no 
declaration that the Nicaraguan treaty with the United States was 
therefore null and void.^ Nicaragua, with our military and naval 
power behind her, and our $3,000,000 in her pocket, refused to 
acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. 

Honduras and Salvador had a different grievance. The Gulf of 
Fonseca, probably the best harbor on the Pacific outside San 
» World Court, January, 1917, p. 370. 



The Rights of Small American Nations 175 

Francisco Bay and Magdalena Bay, is enclosed within the territory 
of three states, Nicaragua, Honduras and Salvador, the chief Pacific 
ports of the two latter countries being on that gulf. Modern guns 
placed at our proposed naval base on Nicaraguan territory will 
command these ports and practically the whole Honduran and Sal- 
vadorean part of the gulf. In this case, as in the Costa Rican one, 
the court decided four to one against Nicaragua, which in this case 
also refused to acknowledge jurisdiction. As regards both the two 
great concessions granted us by the treaty, then, the court's decision 
is unequivocal that the rights of the complaining states have been 
disregarded by Nicaragua. I shall not try to discuss the merits of 
the controversy. It is vigorously asserted that the Nicaraguan 
government which refused to accept the decision of the court is a 
government practically brought into existence by the United States 
and supported by our warships and marines, against the protest of 
a majority of the Nicaraguans. Be that as it may, the Nicaraguan 
refusal to abide by the decision of the court threatens the destruction 
of that agency, and threatens the failure of the plan of neutralizing 
Honduras. Needless to say, it is piling up irritation and suspicion 
against the United States, despite our fair words inserted in the 
treaty itself: "It is declared by the Senate .... that nothing 
in said convention is intended to affect any existing right of any of 
the said named states. "^ Of course not, and yet the Central Ameri- 
can Court of Justice all but unanimously decides that our treaty does 
so affect their rights. 

Of the Colombian situation I shall say little. The facts are of 
public record, proudly avowed by the chief actor. The alleged 
"holdup" of the United States by the Colombian rejection of the 
Hay-Herran treaty calling for a cash payment of $10,000,000 and an 
annual payment of $250,000 besides, the unsavory story of the 
activities of the old French company in trying to dispose of their 
concession before it should run out, the bloodless "revolution," 
arranged in New York, staged in Panama, and carried out with the 
careful collaboration of our military and naval forces, and the hair- 
trigger recognition of the new republic by the Washington authori- 
ties — all these are undisputed facts. We dug, and fortified, the 
canal, and gave Colombia a permanent grievance, which we have 
been trying ever since to find some way to redress without saying 
* Costa Rica, Honduras and Salvador. 



176 The Annals of the American Academy 

that we were at fault. Various treaties have been proposed; all 
have failed of ratification. A few months ago, it is reported, a number 
of the most influential journals in Colombia urged the withdrawal 
of their country from the Pan-American Union as a measure of pro- 
test against the failure of the United States to rectify what they 
consider their country's grievous wrong. It would be difficult to 
exaggerate the bad effect produced throughout the Caribbean region 
by our action in the whole Colombian matter, or the amount of ill- 
will and suspicion it has added to the burden we were already carry- 
ing as the most prominent strong power operating there to support 
the designs of its forward-looking capitalists. 

With the recital of these simple and well-known facts I need only 
state my point, which is a very simple and evident one. We have at 
present the power to make our will supreme in the Caribbean basin. 
In the two cases mentioned that power has been used to carry 
through our own policy in contravention of what the leaders of the 
small nations affected rightly or wrongly conceived to be their rights. 
In consequence we have begotten a hostility which, while not yet 
actually of serious dimensions, none the less contains possibilities of 
importance in any case of foreign complications, as we realize today 
in our relations with Germany. Every unadjusted problem of this 
kind means the need for more soldiers and battleships in order that 
we may be able to enforce our view of the right upon our unwilling 
little neighbors, and as all experience shows, such a development is 
unfavorable to the settlement of new questions on terms that both 
parties consider fair. Might we not well have a permanent govern- 
ment commission, or a bureau in the state department, whose es- 
sential business should be the consideration of the economic no less 
than the political aspects of American investment abroad? Un- 
less we turn attention seriously and sympathetically to these ques- 
tions, we are in grave danger, despite the good intentions of our 
state department, of violating increasingly what our smaller Ameri- 
can neighbors consider their rights. They stand in sore need of 
friendly help in their struggle for economic betterment and stable 
self-government. If we still hold our historic beUef that they can 
finally attain these ends, we can pursue a policy of friendly coopera- 
tion with their governments and people, and not a blundering policy 
of unquestioning support of whatever American financial interests 
happen to be dominant in the respective states. On the other hand, 



The Rights of Small American Nations 177 

if we have lost our ancient faith, we can consistently carry out a 
policy of frank imperialism, based on our idea of what is good for 
the Central Americans, and for us, and forced upon them by our 
armed might. But in that case we ought not to forget the words of 
Theodore Ruyssen: 

Coercion from without results in uniting incongruous elements until at last the 
day comes when the nationality, however complex in its origin, united in aspira- 
tions, considers itself ready to ocx-upy a place among the nations, and rises up 
against its oppressors to claim a place in the Sun of Liberty. 



"WAR TO STOP WAR" 

EMERGENCY COMPULSORY SERVICE IN AMERICA TO CRUSH 
THE SYSTEM OF COMPULSORY SERVICE FOR ALL CHIL- 
DREN OF MEN EVERYWHERE 

By John Sharp Williams, 
United States Senator from Mississippi. 

We find ourselves as a nation in a very paradoxical sort of 
situation. In giving the reasons for standing where we are, we 
must indulge in phrases that seemingly contradict themselves. 
We are carrying on war with the hope of putting an end to war. 
We are using the ordinary method of settling international quarrels 
— war — with the hope that by indulging ourselves in this one 
hideous thing, once more, we may avoid in the future the recurrence 
of other hideous things like it. Then we are resorting to compulsory 
universal service in an emergency for the purpose, if we can, of 
freeing the world of the dogma and burden and weight and folly and 
idiocy of universal military service all over the world, with the 
hope that after the potency of this great republic has been added 
to the power of those in Europe who are fighting for civilization 
and liberty and freedom and the ordinary usages of civilized society, 
that there will be no need — ^here, or there, or anywhere — for universal 
compulsory service. We do this with the idea in our heads that 
we are going to enforce upon all the nations of this world, whether 
they will or not, that they shall not keep their populations in 
armed camps, threatening the peace of the other nations of the 
world and forcing them to imitate their example. 

I have been a peace fanatic — am yet. I think that war when 
it is not insanity is idiocy. There is no excuse for it, and there 
ought to be somehow, somewhere, a court with force behind it that 
can say to the lawbreaking nations, 

The first one of you who.dares make war upon another civilized power without 
having first proposed to leave the question in controversy to an impartial tribunal 
for settlement, is thrown thereby outside of the pale of international law — is 
for the nonce to be treated as a non-civihzed power — a barbarian power — and 
readmitted into the pale of civiHzation only when you repent, not by word, but 

178 



War to Stop War 179 

by deeds, for the sin against all mankind which you have committed. For the 
time being of your international lawlessness, at any rate, you become not the 
enemy of the country against which you are waging war, but theenemy of mankind, 
and all civilized power representing mankind will by force teach you that lesson 
any time it shall be necessary. 

I don't care what you call it, a "concert of the world powers," 
or as I like to call it, "an amphictyonic council of the civilized 
world." Whatever it may be called, mankind must learn in in- 
ternational quarrels what they have learned in individual quarrels 
among civiHzed people in any given country, that is, that the league 
is backed with sufficient power just as a court to settle personal 
disputes. If the quarrel should be improperly decided, then even 
that is better than that every man should take his quarrel into 
his own hands and settle the controversy by the fist of the strongest 
or the wit of the cunningest. 

Of course, this plan is not going to stop all war. There are 
wars founded upon deep differences of traditions and institutional 
policies, that may come anyhow. Most of them, however, are 
founded upon other things, like this war, for example, that ought 
by all means to have been avoided. Who pretends that Austria 
really made war upon Serbia because a Serbian by blood but an 
Austrian by nationality — half crazy — assassinated a grand duke 
and his wife? Who believes it? Who believes that if the prop- 
osition made to her to leave the question to the concert of Europe 
or to leave it to The Hague or to leave it to an impartial tribunal, 
had been accepted, there would have been any war at all? Who is 
there that does not know that the real cause of the war was the 
determination to open up for the Teutonic powers the line from 
Berlin to Bagdad by way of Belgrade and Salonica so that there 
might be an open way through Serbia for the Central Teutonic 
powers? Who does not know that all this talk about a "place in 
the sun" for Germany was folly and pretense? There was plenty 
of place in the sun. That the real God's truth was that Germany 
was increasing her population by immigration every year more than 
it was being decreased by emigration and that there were no 
"pent-up populations" "without room for their energies?" 

So much for that. I am in favor of compulsory service in 
war time. I am opposed to it in peace time. But there is very httle 
use of debating right now about having or not having that system 
in peace time, because it depends upon how this war is going to 



180 The Annals of the American Academy 

result, as to what is going to become, at its end, of the system. 
If Germany wins this war, we will have to keep up universal military 
service indefinitely, because Belgium will become a part of her 
empire, France will be a vassal state whose international relations 
will be controlled by the German ambassador at Paris; Holland 
will be a vassal state. Denmark, with her hands in the lion's 
mouth, will be another. All the seacoast of the North Sea and the 
English Channel will be subject to her power. All the shipbuilding 
industries, rivers and harbors and naval yards of those countries 
will be hers, and "the master of the land" will proceed to become 
"the mistress of the sea." She and her allies are pretty nearly 
withstanding all Europe now, even with the miraculous seapower of 
England cast into the balance against them. And without our aid 
she would have to go down, and if England went down, our time 
would come now. 

If Germany wins, we will have to keep up this miserable thing 
forever. No, not forever but until we and England only or perhaps 
we alone, under God's grace, can whip it. If we win, not only 
here but all over the civilized world, we can say that a nation shall 
be allowed to keep a standing army in times of peace with so many 
men in it, the same number for each nation — great or small — so 
that the small power can't be taken unawares and ridden over. 
Even that will not deprive the great powers with the great popula- 
tions and resources of their natural advantages, because in addition 
to the troops in the field, which will be about all that the small 
powers can maintain, the great powers will have behind them their 
immense populations and their immense financial resources and 
every national advantage which they can conserve and in need 
summon and mobilize. 

We are in the war now. We didn't want to go into it. We 
submitted to being kicked. We submitted to having written 
notice served upon us that we were going to be kicked again. 
Then we said, "We don't believe the Kaiser really means to do it 
and we will wait for the third kick." Then the Algonquin went 
down and three more American ships — four kicks. Now we are in it. 

There are some things in this world that men must fight for. 
War is idiocy when it is not insanity. It is a perfectly hideous 
thing for men to be shooting one another, widowing the women, 
orphaning the children, destroying the churches and the uni- 



War to Stop War 181 

versities and the libraries, making to crumble in one short year 
the accumulations of mankind for a hundred years; but there 
are some things in the world worse than that, and one of them is 
for a great people to submit indefinitely to humiliation until it 
loses its own self-respect and by thinking itself contemptible, 
becomes contemptible. 

"Beware of entrance into a quarrel, but being in it, bear 
thyself that thy opposite may beware of thee." We are going to do 
that. I don't say I think we are, I say we arc. I know this people. 
Whatsoever must be borne in order that this struggle may be 
carried to a successful issue and that world militarism may be 
brought to its knees, begging for mercy and agreeing to do justice 
in the future, we shall bear. Whatsoever it shall cost in order 
that that issue may be accomplished, we shall pay it; and whatsoever 
must be endured to prevent the possibility of the recurrence of the 
hideous spectacle to which we shall put an end by our victory, 
that we shall endure. And in doing these things, I think we will 
find that all sections and parts of this country will hang together. 
We had better do it, as Benjamin Franklin said, unless we want to 
hang separately. 

And so it is with the civilized powers of the world in the face 
of this great military idealism. People who have ceased, without 
knowing it, the worship of Christ and have gone back to worshiping 
Thor and Odin — the gods of the Goths and Vandals; people who, or 
whose rulers, rather, not they, have come to the deliberate con- 
viction, after study and philosophizing under teachers in universi- 
ties, under statesmen like Bismarck, under military leaders like 
Bernhardi, that a state is bound by no moral law and that the 
interest of a state must constitute the state's right; in other words, 
that in international law, might is right and that the necessity 
of the state overcomes all moral considerations of every description, 
must have their sanity restored. This strange, curious form of 
insanity makes a state a separate entity of some sort, as if God had 
created cows and horses and men and then created something which 
He called a state; and this state-worship is more or less bound up 
with the idea that the man who hereditarily governs the state 
really does "rule by divine right"; that the state exists by divine 
right and that God created the state forgetful of the fact that after 
all, men created every state or else some one man, by superior 



182 The Annals of the American Academy 

power and conquest, created it. What idiocy in the face of history ! 
The idiocy of putting the creature before the creator of it! 

A man not long ago wrote to me: "You Americans don't seem to 
understand the German idea of the state. You think of it not 
as a separate thing with a separate code of its own, but you think 
of it as you do of an individual." I wrote to him that as far as I 
was concerned, I was guilty; that I had never conceived of any 
government tolerable to man that wasn't founded upon the fact 
that men created it and that men had created it for the protection 
of their lives and liberties and civilization; and if any government 
didn't do that, men ought to tear it down, no matter what the 
name of it was, monarchy, empire or republic. 

He thought that the state was an independent entity, and 
I said I regarded it as a creature. I regard the men and the women 
and the children as the things to be taken care of, and the state 
is there only for that purpose. I said, "You seem to think that 
Wilham the Kaiser has been ordained of God to govern you, and 
you seem to think as a perfectly logical conclusion that the govern- 
ment which governs anybody is ordained of God to do whatever it 
pleases." 

I read this recently, which you would think was written 
right now in America: 

We are fighting for that which we love, whatever we call it. It is the right, 
but it is something even more than the right: for our Hves, for the liberty of 
western Europe, for the possibility of peace and friendship between nations, for 
something which we should rather die than lose; and lose it we shall unless we 
can beat the Germans. Yet I have met scarcely a single person who seems to 
hate the Germans. We abominate their dishonest government, their unscrupulous 
and arrogant diplomacy, the whole spirit of blood and iron ambition which seems 
to have spread from Prussia through a great part of the nation — but not the 
people in general. 

That is true with us today, isn't it? I haven't found in all 
America, one single man, though there may be some, that had in 
his heart one iota of hatred for the German people today. There 
is none that desires to avenge something, although we can hear the 
groans and the dying gurgles of the men and women and children 
who died from the Lusitania; yet with all that, there is none of 
that spirit of hatred that generally carries a people into a war. 
And God grant that there may be none, because when this war is 



War to Stop War 183 

over we want to have a "just and durable peace," because a peace 
dictated by victors in a spirit of hatred is never just and is seldom 
durable. 

We don't want to "crush Germany" — God forbid. We want 
to crush the system under which Germany is now laboring, and 
laboring under which, she has become a menace to the civilized 
world. If I could dictate the terms of peace tomorrow, I would say 

Let Alsace-Lorraine go. Let St-lileswig-Holstein go. Austria, let Bosnia 
form a government with her own Serbian kindred. Let Herzegovina go with her 
Montenegro kinspeople. Turn the Roumanians in Transylvania loose. Free 
Bohemia from Hapsburg rule. Reign over the Magyars if they wish that you 
should. Russia, Austria and Prussia, all three, let Poland be reestablished once 
more as an independent power upon the surface of this globe, with rights of 
citizenship. Germany, let Belgium go. Turn Luxemburg loose if she wants to 
be. If there is any doubt about the will of the people in any of these countries, 
let them decide whether they want to go with you or go back to their kin. 

But I wouldn't crush Germany. On the contrary, I would 
make Germany stronger than she is now. The German population 
of upper Austria and of lower Austria and of the Tyrol and of 
Salzburg and of any other province outside of the German Empire, 
I would add to the German Empire and make it stronger than it is 
today, and I would base nationality on the commonness of language, 
because you can't have a durable peace unless that is the case. 
Now that might result in crushing the House of Hapsburg, and 
it would do it very effectively, but it wouldn't crush the German 
people. 

Says another, not an American: 

We seek no territory, no aggrandizement, no revenge. We only want to be 
safe from the recurrence of this present horror. We want permanent peace for 
Europe and freedom for each nation. Crushing Germany would do no good. 
It would point straight towards a war of revenge. It is not Germany, it is a 
system that needs crushing. It is not that we happen to be sick of this particular 
war; it is that we mean, if we can, to extirpate war out of the normal possibiUties 
of civilized Ufe, as we have extirpated leprosy and typhus. We hate war so 
much that we shall carry it on in order to aboHsh it. 

First of all, we want no revenge, no deliberate humihation of any enemy, 
no picking and stealing of money or territory; next, we want a drastic resettlement 
of all those burning problems which carry in them the seeds of European War, 
especially the problem of territory. Many of the details will be very difficult, 
some may prove insoluble, but in general, we must try to arrange, even at con- 
siderable cost, that territory goes with nationality. And shaU we try again to 



184 The Annals of the American Academy 

achieve Castlereagh's and Alexander's ideal of a permanent concert, pledged to 
make collective war upon the peace-breaker? Surely we must. 

Of course, all these hopes may be shattered and made ridiculous before the 
settlement comes. They would be shattered, probably, by a German victory, 
not because Germans are wicked but because a German victory at the present 
time would mean a victory for blood and iron. To prevent the first of these perils 
is the work of our armies and navies; to prevent the second should be the work of 
all thoughtful non-combatants. It may be a difficult task, but at least it is not 
hideous, though some of the work that we must do in order to accomphsh it may 
be; so hideous, indeed, that at times it seems strange that we can carry it out 
at all — this war of civiUzed men against civilized men, against our intellectual 
teachers and compeers, our brothers in art and science and healing medicine, and 
so large a part of all that makes hfe beautiful. We must fight our hardest, 
indomitably, gallantly, even joyously, forgetting all else while we have to fight. 
When the fight is over, we must remember the phrase, "Never again!" 

''Never again! Somebody advised not long ago that those 
words should be carried upon the kit-bag of every English sailor 
and upon the knapsack of every English soldier." "Never again" 
I sa3^, a thing like this for us or for our brethren elsewhere. Our 
brethren, because all the children of God are bretkren, whether 
they be Germans or Russians or French or Belgians or Americans. 
We are fighting to reestablish the brotherhood of man and to crush 
forever the doctrine that anybody has the right, for the sake of 
making himself or his nation more powerful than other people, 
to ride, rough-shod over men and women and children as Germany 
did in Belgium without even herself contending that they had even 
in the slightest degree provoked enmity by any act or word or 
intent, and then afterwards killed the civil population because they 
sympathized with their own brethren and their own land and 
because they had dared, as a little people, rather to die free than to 
live slaves. 

So I say as this author says about the British soldier going 
out with "Never again" inscribed upon his knapsack, — I want 
every American who goes forth to go with that on his knapsack, 
and if he can't put it upon liis knapsack, put in his heart at any 
rate : ' ' Never again . ' ' 

It means a great deal, because it furthermore means that you are so resolutely 
determined that this hideous thing shall never again occur that you have made 
up your mind you won't quit fighting now until you are sure that you can make 
it tolerably certain that it never again will occur. 



A League to Enforce Peace 185 

Now, these words I quote are not my words. They arc the 
words of Professor Gilbert Murray of Oxford University, pro- 
nounced in an address in 1914. He concludes by saying "One 
may well be thankful that the strongest of the neutral powers" — 
referring to these United States — "is guided by a leader so wise 
and upright and temperate as President Wilson." 



A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

By Walter L. Fisher, 
Chicago. 

The immediate cause that has involved the United States in 
war todaj^ is that our ships are being sunk and our people killed 
while they are lawfully engaged in peaceful commerce on the seas; 
but important as is the immediate protection of our national rights 
and of our people's lives against other nations who are engaged in 
war, this alone would not have drawn us into the war. We are at 
war because we believe there is a compelling necessity and a real 
opportunity "to make the world safe for democracy"; to end 
militarism as a political system; to destroy Prussianism as a national 
philosophy. We are at war, and our immediate task is to make 
war effectively. But if we cease for one moment to keep in mind 
the deep underlying purpose of our warfare, and the great object 
we hope and intend to accomplish by it, we shall weaken the very 
effectiveness of our warfare. We shall be of those who gain battles 
and yet lose a war. I agree entirely with the sentiment expressed 
by Senator WilHams^ with regard to that motto which should go 
upon the knapsack of the soldier, "Never again"; but unless the 
men and women of America who are not soldiers have that motto 
written in their hearts and express it in action, then indeed the 
sacrifice of the soldiers will have been in vain. 

Two years ago Lord Grey uttered the profound truth that 

Unless mankind learns from this war to avoid war the struggle will have been 

in vain Over humanity will loom the menace of destruction. If 

the world cannot organize against war, if war must go on ... . the 
resources and inventions of science will end by destroying the humanity thej' 
were meant to serve. 



See page 178. 



186 The Annals of the American Academy 

And in December of last year, in one of the most remarkable 
and significant documents that have been pubhshed in Germany 
since the war began, Dr. Bernard Dernburg, formerly Colonial 
Secretary and for a time the accredited agent of Germany in this 
country, expressed almost identical views: 

It certainly sounds foolhardy to speak of a reconciliation of nations in these 
times of bitterest hate when the slaughter of nations is at its zenith. Neverthe- 
less it is necessary and inevitable. If no lasting peace comes, peace based on 
confidence alone, then inevitably there will come another war, and this new war 
can end only with the mutual annihilation of the nations of civiUzed Europe. 
Manly courage and manly strength are no longer the decisive factors; unfortu- 
nately the decisive factor is the machine. If mankind is to give thought for ten 
years more to machines for destrojang life and property, another war at the 
present rate of technical development will mean the end of Europe. 

. . . . International law is now a desolate heap of ruins, but it must be 
rebuilt and it must so regulate the relations of nations to each other that they 
must stand under its protection as free states, possessing equal rights, whether 
they be large or small. This protection must be exercised by the common power 
of all, either by force or by a common ban placed upon a transgressor which 
would be equivalent to barring him from intercourse with the rest of the world. 

Nor should we overlook the declaration of the German Chancel- 
lor himself which led to Dr. Dernburg's discussion of the interna- 
tional situation: 

When the world at last reahzes what the awful ravages in property and life 
mean, then a cry for peaceful agreements and understandings will go through all 
mankind which will prevent in so far as it lies within human power the recurrence 
of such a tremendous catastrophe. This cry will be so loud and justified that it 
must lead to a result. Germany will honestly cooperate in the examination of 
every endeavor to find a practical solution and will collaborate for its possible 
reaUzation. 

President Wilson delivered a great speech when he stated to 
Congress the reasons which had compelled him to break off diplo- 
matic relations with Germany, and to ask Congress to join him in 
declaring the existence of a state of war; but he delivered a far 
greater speech on January 22, 1917 — a speech which, in my judg- 
ment, will live as the most important utterance of an American 
President since Abraham Lincoln spoke on the field of Gettysburg. 
If he or we lose sight of the reasoned utterances of that address or 
of the fundamental principles he stated, we shall just to that extent 
fail to grasp the issues and the opportunities of the titanic struggle 
of which we have now become a part. 



A League to Enforce Peace 187 

It is said that these were but words and that what we 
need is deeds; that actions speak louder than words. May I sug- 
gest that words are sometimes deeds; and that the utterance of a 
speech Hke Lincoln's at Gettysburg or like Wilson's in the Senate 
may be as truly a deed as the unfurling of a standard about which 
men may rally, or the sounding of the bugle that calls them to the 
colors; and every ear that is deaf to that trumpet call, and every 
step that is taken away from that standard, lends aid and comfort 
to the enemy and lessens the chances of success in war and of a 
greater victory in peace. 

We shall do well to turn, again and again, to the declarations of 
President Wilson when we were yet free from the hurries and the 
hatreds of war. If they were the words of truth and soberness 
three months ago, they are as true today and more sober. 

In the very address which led to our declaration of the state of 
war, the President said: 

I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I ad- 
dressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when 
I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. 
Our object now as then is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the 
life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst 
the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose 
and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles. 

We will do well, therefore, to refresh our recollection of what 
the President did ssiy on January 22: 

. . . . The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candor 
and to a just regard for the opinion of mankind to say that so far as our participa- 
tion in guarantees of future peace is concerned it makes a great deal of difference 

in what way and upon what terms it is ended The question upon 

which the whole future peace and poHcy of the world depends is this: Is the 
present war a struggle for a just and secure peace or only for a new balance of 
power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, 
who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a 
tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, 
but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common 
peace. 

Fortunately we have received very explicit assurances on this point 

But the implications of these assurances may not be equally clear to all — may not 
be the same on both sides of the water. I think it will be serviceable if I attempt 
to set forth what we understand them to be. 

They imply first of all that it must be a peace without victory. It is not 



188 The Annals of the American Academy 

pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpreta- 
tion upon it and that it may be understood that no other interpretation was in 
ray thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft 
concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms 
imposed upon the vanquished. It would be adopted in humiUation, under duress 
at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory 
upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quick- 
sand. Only a peace between equals can last; only a peace the very principle of 
which is equahty and a common participation in a common benefit. The right 
state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace 
as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national 

allegiance 

And the paths of the sea must alike, in law and in fact, be free. The freedom 

of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equahty and cooperation 

Difficult and dehcate as these questions are, they must be faced with the utmost 
candor and decided in a spirit of real accommodation if peace is to come with 

heahng in its wings and come to stay The statesmen of the world 

must plan for peace and nations must adjust and accommodate then- pohcy to 
it as they have planned for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. 

If these words are to rank as deeds and are to beget deeds, they 
must proceed resolutely from general principles to practical and 
definite proposals. It is absolutely imperative that we shall now, 
in the very midst of this war, while we are preparing for it and 
fighting in it, discuss the policies and formulate the plans which, 
in the words of President Wilson, are to result in "a world organized 
for justice and democracy." The plans may not be executed now, 
but their essential features must be devised and formulated now or 
they will never come into existence when peace is declared. 

Even last November the Times said: 

We agree that neutrals cannot do a better service to the cause of peace after 
the war than by the present discussion and advocacy of a practical system of 
the kind, if such a system can be devised. 

And Lord Grey declared: "The best work the neutrals can 
do for the moment is to try to prevent a war like this from happen- 
ing again." 

If the discussion of the plans upon which a just and durable 
peace can be secured and maintained constitutes the most useful 
service which neutrals can perform in the midst of the war, this is 
also the most useful service which the belligerents can perform. A 
clear understanding of just what is to be the end of all the fighting 
can lessen the vigor of the fight only if there be some question of 



A League to Enforce Peace 180 

the importance and the justice of the end. Now that we ourselves 
have ceased to be neutral, we have no higher duty to ourselves and 
to the world than to keep our minds open, our vision clear, our 
speech free, and our hands busy, for the accomplishment of the 
great purpose of the war, and we should have no understanding or 
commitment that will prevent us from making peace ourselves and 
from urging peace on others the instant that great purpose can in 
our judgment be obtained. Our fight is "to make the world safe 
for democracy." If in order to accompHsh this it is necessary first 
to destroy militarism it is all important that we shall understand of 
what militarism consists, and we must not confuse militarism with 
its results nor fail to recognize it in our own councils and in the 
councils of our friends. 

The essence of militarism is the belief that war is the natural, 
the necessary, the normal means by which international differences 
of opinion must be adjusted; it is the tendency to decry and to 
belittle the slow processes by which mankind as individuals and as 
nations has climbed up out of barbarism by substituting law for 
force. It is the conception of the state as something above and 
beyond moral law. Militarism is not ruthlessness ; it is not cruelty; 
it is not savagely; it is the principle from which these evils spring. 
Once believe that war is inevitable and that preparedness for war 
is the only practicable assurance of peace, the inevitable result is 
the exaltation of force, the justification of cruelty, the acceptance 
of a despotic theory of the state, more blighting in its curse than 
the despotism of kaiser or king or czar. Once cease to plan for 
peace and there is nothing left but to plan for war. If mankind is 
to progress, if civilization is to go forward, nations must be held 
to the same moral standards as are individuals, and nations must 
progress little by little, step by step, as individuals have progressed. 
It is as true of international as of national or community affairs, 
that the progress of civilization can be exactly measured by the 
extent to which law has superseded force. 

The issue that will confront the world at the close of this war, 
and which indeed confronts it now, is whether we are to put an end 
not only to militarism, but to the false doctrine that enduring 
economic interests can be promoted by force. Temporary advan- 
tages maj'^ be secured by the exploitation of other nations, espe- 



l90 The Annals of the American Academy 

cially — perhaps exclusively — undeveloped peoples and undeveloped 
lands, but in the long run the economic interests of the world are 
mutual. If, as we believe, the welfare of the mass of the people is 
the real test of national success, every nation has most to gain by 
helping to advance the trade of the world, to make all nations 
prosperous while fostering its own commerce by every means con- 
sistent with sound economic laws. Privilege may gain from exploita- 
tion, but not democracy; and democracy has come to stay as the 
economic, social and intellectual ideal of civilization even more than 
as a political ideal. So far as the happiness of the mass of mankind 
or of the masses of any particular nation is concerned, there should 
be neither exploitation nor a "war after the war" by hostile alH- 
ances in the world of trade. 

I am advocating no diminution of the vigor with which we 
should prepare for and prosecute this war. I am merely insisting 
that we should know definitely for what we are fighting and for 
what we are to continue to fight. We have voted billions of money 
and authorized the training of millions of men. While these plans 
are being carried out with all the intelligence and energy which 
can be effectively applied to them we must not fail to see that even 
from the distinctively military point of view the formulation and 
announcement of plans for a just and durable peace is the most 
effective weapon we can wield. The presentation by the allied 
powers, with the support of the United States, and if possible of 
neutral nations, of a plan of international reorganization that would 
make it no longer possible for the Prussian military caste to per- 
suade the German people that they must fight in self-defense would 
be worth more than millions of men on the fighting line in France. 

Let no man belittle the influence of the argument of self- 
defense in Germany. It was Lloyd George himself who, at Queens 
Hall, in July, 1908, said: 

Look at the position of Germany. Her army is what our navy is to us — her 
sole defense against invasion. She has not got a two-power standard. She may 
have a stronger army than France, than Russia, than Italy, than Austria, but 
she is between two great powers who in combination could pour in a vastly 
greater number of troops than she has. Don't forget that, when you wonder why 
Germany is frightened at alUances and understandings and some sort of mys- 
terious workings which appear in the press and hints in the 7\?nes and the Daily 
Mail Here is Germany in the middle of Europe, with France and 



A League to Enforce Peace 191 

Russia on either side and with a combination of their armies greater than hers. 
Suppose we had here a possible combination which would lay us open to invasion 
— suppose Germany and Russia, or Germany and Austria, had fleets which in 
combination would be stronger than ours, would we be not frightened, would we 
not arm? 

We shall not remove this fear by defeating the German armies 
in the field or by imposing upon Germany the terms of peace. 
The English Round Table was right when it declared that "Prus- 
sianism, as a philosophy of war, will live until the German people 
themselves have rebelled against it." And a thoroughly posted and 
thoughtful American has said: "Germany can be made a hberal 
state only by her own liberals. No artificial liberalism imposed by 
the allies on a defeated Germany would last a month after the with- 
drawal of the allied army." 

We must not make the mistake which has so discredited those 
intellectual leaders of Germany who by their manifesto demon- 
strated their inability to see anything but the German point of 
view. We must not make the mistake against which Burke warned 
us and attempt the indictment of a whole people. If we hope to 
make any progress toward permanent peace we must recognize 
that there are Germans who are not mihtaristic and who sincerely 
desire what we desire, even though we may sincerely disagree as 
to the methods by which it is to be accomplished. We must wel- 
come every approach which such Germans make toward a better 
understanding; because our claim to infalHbility is no better than 
is theirs, and it is of great importance to the world that the German 
people shall be brought to understand that militarism is not essen- 
tial to their security or to their progress as a people. 

If this is not the time for the formal offer of terms surely it is 
time to consider what these terms should be. If we are fighting 
for democracy, then democracy must discuss the terms upon which 
the fight shall cease. The old processes of secret diplomacy must 
end and they can end only by the substitution of free discussion 
which shall take place, so far as possible, before the event and not 
merely after it. 

On April 2, President Wilson said: 

Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression carried, it may be, 
from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only 
within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a 



192 The Annals of the American Academy 

narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion 
commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs. 

The events of the past few weeks should — it seems to me — 
have removed from the minds of thinking men the last lingering 
doubt of the wisdom and the necessity of a League to Enforce 
Peace to which the United States shall be a party. We have been 
given a convincing demonstration that we cannot keep out of the 
war by avoiding international alliances. No matter how benefi- 
cent our purposes, how pacific our policies, peaceful isolation has 
become impossible in a world at war. If we would maintain our 
own peace we must do our part to maintain the peace of the world. 
And what is true of us is true of every other great nation. For 
weal or for woe the restless energy and inventive genius of man 
have knit the nations of the earth together; and the inexorable laws 
of industrial and social evolution have made out of many peoples 
one people for all the deep and vital issues that affect the future of 
mankind. We cannot avoid our share of world responsibility if we 
would, and we should not if we could. 

More than a year ago I advocated before the House Committee 
on Military Affairs, and again before the Senate Committee last 
December, the creation of a citizen reserve, trained by and through 
the regular army, and the building of submarines and destroyers 
instead of dreadnaughts and battle cruisers, at least for the present 
— a policy that if adopted would have been of incalculable value to 
us; but "preparedness" for war on land and sea would not 
have saved us from becoming involved in this war, nor will it save 
us in the future. A million men in arms in the United States today 
would not have deterred Germany from her desperate resolve to 
rule the seas with terror that she might bring England to her knees. 
Even our alHes impress upon us that the issue will be decided on 
the ocean. We have a navy substantially equal to that of any of 
the Allies except England and yet it does not keep us out of war. 
It is folly beyond belief to think that in the future we can build 
ships or train soldiers enough to protect our national interests if 
we are to stand alone in selfish isolation while the rest of the world 
is left in bitterness to tread the bloody wine press. 

The progress of civilization is measured by the extent to which 
law has become a substitute for force or has been put in control over 
force. Within the nation — in all community affairs — this is ac- 



A League to Enforce Peace 193 

cepted as axiomatic. It is a sound axiom for international relations. 
The punishment of crime and the settlement of the rights of persons 
and of property is now recognized almost — although not quite — 
universally to be the function of the state in all communities that 
claim to be civilized. In these very communities, however, this 
has been accomplished not by completely prohibiting fighting at 
the outset, but by first restricting and regulating private vengeance 
and resort to force. The first step toward peace is to delay war — 
private or public, — the second step is to prohibit it. A study of the 
history of civilization from its primitive beginnings discloses many 
illustrations, but time permits reference only to two. 

One of the most interesting and significant of Anglo-Saxon 
institutions was the trial by battle, which was long recognized in 
England as a form of judicial procedure under which the parties 
litigant could settle their controversies and determine their rights 
by personal combat in the presence of the court; but this could be 
done only after resort to the peaceful processes of the tribunal. 
This rudimentary^ device for substituting law for force by delaying 
war was undoubtedly akin to the duel, which was originally estab- 
lished by the Germans, Danes and Franks as a judicial combat 
between the parties or their champions by which the guilt or inno- 
cence of individuals and property rights of many kinds, including 
rights in land and titles to estates, were determined. So universal 
was its application that only women, cripples, invalids and persons 
over sixty were excused from submitting themselves and their 
rights to personal combat. It was under the pseudo-chivalry of 
Francis I of France and Charles V of Spain that the duel attained 
its vogue as the "code of honor," under which "gentlemen" were 
permitted to commit murder under the sanction of an "unwritten 
law." Only recently has it been recognized as a survival of savage 
customs and standards. Even now, despite legal prohibitions, it 
Hngers, not only in Germany, but elsewhere, as an evidence of 
retarded development, of intellectual and moral immaturity. 
Nevertheless, the duel marked a great advance over the chaotic 
reign of force which it superseded. As Colonel Benton said in his 
account of the duel between John Randolph and Henry Clay, 
"Certainly, duelling is bad, but not quite so bad as its substitutes — 
revolvers, bowie knives, blackguarding and street assassinations, 
under the pretext of self-defense." We have many men still left 



194 The Annals of the American Academy 

among us whose conception of national honor and international 
relations has not yet progressed beyond the code duello, and some 
who oppose bringing nations up even to its standards. In the dis- 
cussion to which I have already referred, after stating that the 
objects upon which the entire world is in agreement "are to be 
attained only by a supernational union of nations," Dr. Dernburg 
says : 

To accomplish all this will be difficult, and there will be many ups and downs, 
since even among the most enlightened minds of Germany there is an indefinite 
prejudice against the loss of sovereignty and free agency which is impHed in 
these ideas. Om* Hindenburg, for instance, said, a few days ago: "Questions of 
honor and self-preservation can never be submitted to courts of arbitration." I 
take the Uberty of differing with him. Every officer whose honor is insulted is 
not permitted to take up arms without further ado; he must submit to a court of 
honor composed of his friends, and these are in duty bound to try every means 
to bring about an honorable compromise. Nations too must do that. Naturally 
every duel is not avoided by such means, but if the officer, despite the decision 
of the court of honor, has recourse to weapons, he ceases to be an officer and dis- 
appears from among those of his caste. That is what will happen also among 
nations. They will not abide by decisions and they will bear the consequences. 
There are occasions among individuals as well as nations when destruction is 
preferred to surrender. Yet that is no argument against courts of honor and 
courts of arbitration. The object of both is to curb unjustified provocation and 
unbridled pugnacity. Moreover, the question of what is incompatible with 
honor or national existence is so elastic that to withdraw it from the jurisdiction 
of courts is equivalent to depriving every court decision of permanence, and 
thus doing away with trust in such decisions. 

The League to Enforce Peace does not propose to prevent us 
from fighting if we wish; it merely requires us to go before a board 
of arbitration, or a council of conciliation before engaging in war. 
It does not undertake to enforce the award of the one or the recom- 
mendation of the other. This hideous world war may make it 
possible to go much further than this in international reorganiza- 
tion, but the strength of this movement at present lies in the mod- 
eration and simplicity of its proposals. It seeks to do today what 
can be done today in the way that is available today. It leaves to 
tomorrow the adoption of methods and the accomplishment of 
objects that tomorrow alone may make attainable. Quite sufficient 
for the day are the difficulties thereof and the advocates of this 
league of peace do not overlook or minimize them. They simply do 
not regard them as insuperable. Confident in the power of a great 



A League to Enforce Peace 195 

purpose and in the resources of statecraft, they are the proponents 
of a principle not the draughtsmen of a treaty. 

They propose a league open to all who accept its conditions — 
a league which binds its own members not to engage in war between 
themselves until they have first submitted their difference, if this 
difference is justiciable (which means determinable upon established 
principles of law or equity), to an international court or board of 
arbitration, or to a council of conciliation if the difference is one 
involving a conflict of national interests or pohcies not justiciable in 
their nature, such as the Monroe Doctrine or our pohcy with 
respect to oriental immigration. The nations joining the league 
agree to use their economic and if necessary their military forces 
against any of their number who begin hostilities without first 
resorting to the methods thus provided for the avoidance of war. 
In order that the field of adjudication may be steadily enlarged, the 
signatory powers are to hold conferences from time to time to 
formulate and codify the rules of international law, the results to 
be binding unless rejected by some power within a stated period. 

I for one believe it would be an admirable thing if we had to 
define and defend the Monroe Doctrine at the bar of reason before 
resorting to its defense by war. We may ourselves conclude to 
modify some of our ancient declarations and to moderate some of 
our ancient claims. We all know that since Monroe initiated that 
doctrine, conditions have radically changed; and Monroe's declara- 
tion has been so altered and enlarged by various statesmen and 
publicists in this country that its putative father would certainly 
not recognize it in the forms it frequently assumes at the present 
time. 

We are all probably familiar with the story of that man who 
was accused of being a traitor to his country because he did not 
believe in the Monroe Doctrine. He indignantly repelled the 
insinuation and said: 

What, not believe in the Monroe Doctrine? I beUeve in it with all my heart, 
I would be willing to fight for it and if necessary to die for it. I never said I did 
not believe in the Monroe Doctrine. What I said wasl did not know what the 
Monroe Doctrine is. 

The Monroe Doctrine probably reached its extreme develop- 
ment when Richard Olney, as Secretary of State, declared that it 
meant in effect that "the United States is practically sovereign on 



196 The Annals of the American Academy 

this continent." But it is of the greatest significance that only a 
few months before his death Secretary Ohiey, in an able discussion 
of these very matters, in the North American Review, demonstrated 
"the necessity of determining, with the least delay practicable, 
what our future Latin-American policy is to be," and said: 

Shall we preserve, unchanged, our traditional attitude as the champion of 
every American state against foreign aggression, without regard to its consent or 
request or its preference to take care of itself or to seek some other ally than the 
United States, and without regard to the surely incurred hostiUty of the aggres- 
sive foreign power? It has often been claimed, and sometimes effectively asserted 
that the United States, in its own interest and for its own welfare, must firmly 
resist any surrender of independence or possession of territory by an American 
state to a foreign power, even if the same be entirely voluntary. Suppose, for 
example, that an American state undertook to permit an oversea power to plant 
a colony on its soil, and to convey to it a port or a coaling station, is the United 
States to resort to war, if necessary, in order to defeat the scheme? These are 
only some of the inquiries which go to show the necessity of a speedy and com- 
prehensive revision of our Latin-American policy. 

Why should we seek understanding and alliance with South 
America upon our common interests, while we reject alliances with 
Europe upon interests of vastly more importance to us than any 
inter.est we now have or are likely to have with th§ Argentine or 
Chili? By all means let us cement bonds of mutual interest and of 
mutual obligation with South America, but let us not refuse to do 
our part in a field of greater interest and of greater obligation. Let 
us not forget that truth which William G. Sumner announced, when 
he said: "If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the 
most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject, because 
doctrines get into a man's own reason and betray him against him- 
self." 

So it is with that ancient doctrine that the United States should 
avoid "entangling alliances" — a phrase usually attributed to George 
Washington but in reality used by Thomas Jefferson, and a phrase 
which now needs at least some clarification. I have recently re- 
examined the history and contents of Washington's farewell address 
and Washington's illuminating correspondence relating to these 
matters; and it seems to me clear that if Washington were alive 
today he would be an ardent advocate of our participation in a 
league which President Wilson has well said is to create "not 
organized rivalries but an organized common peace." Nor is this 



A League to Enforce Peace 197 

opinion based wholly on the stupendous change in world conditions 
since 1800, important as that consideration is. 

Washington advised his countrymen under the conditions then 
existing against "permanent" alliances; but the context clearly 
demonstrates that what he had in mind was "opposite foreign alli- 
ances, attachments and intrigues'," by avoiding which he said we 
would "avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establish- 
ments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to 
liberty and which arc to be regarded as particularly hostile to repub- 
lican liberty." 

In the farewell address what Washington warned us against 
was 

permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate 
attachments for others Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitat- 
ing the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common 
interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former 
into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate induce- 
ment or justification. 

In one of his letters to Lafayette, he said : 

I would be understood to mean, I cannot avoid reflecting with pleasure on 
the probable influence that commerce may hereafter have on human manners and 
society in general. On these occasions 1 consider how mankind may be con- 
nected like one great family in fraternal ties. 

Notwithstanding our warm attachment and great obhgation to 
France for help in our Revolution, Washington steadfastly opposed 
our entry into the war between France and England, and in a letter 
to Monroe in 1796 he said: 

My conduct in public and private life as it relates to the important struggle 
in which the latter (France) is engaged, has been uniform from the commence- 
ment of it and may be sum.med up in a few words: that I have always wished well 
to the French Revolution; that I have always given it as my decided opinion, 
that no nation had a right to intermeddle in the internal affairs of another; that 
everyone had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to 
live under themselves; and that if this country could consistently with its engage- 
ments maintain a strict neutrality and therebj^ preserve peace it was bound to 
do so by motives of policy, interest and every other consideration that ought to 
actuate a people situated and circumstanced as we are, already deeply in debt 
and in a convalescent state from the struggle we have been engaged in ourselves. 

Undoubtedly Woodrow Wilson, the student and teacher of 



198 The Annals of the American Aacdemy 

history, had these things in mind when, as President, he said in his 
great address before the Senate on January 22, 1917: 

And in holding out the expectation that the people and government of the 
United States will join the other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing 
the permanence of peace upon such terms as I have named, I speak with the 
greater boldness and confidence because it is clear to every man who can think 
that there is in this no breach in either our traditions or our policy as a nation, 
but a fulfillment rather of all that we have professed or striven for. 

I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt 
the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world: that no nation 
should seek to extend its poHcy over any other nation or people, but that every 
people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of develop- 
ment, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and 
powerful. 

I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which 
would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and 
selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from with- 
out. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. They all unite to 
act in the same sense and with the same purpose all act in the common interest 
and are free to live their own lives xmder a common protection. 

One objection is sometimes made to the league which indicates 
a complete misunderstanding of its proposals. It is said that if we 
and Germany were now in such a league we should have to sit 
supinely by during the process of arbitration or conciliation while 
Germany continued to sink our ships and kill our people. Nothing 
could be farther from the truth. On the exact contrary, Germany 
would be bound to discontinue the .particular acts of which we com- 
plain until the report of the board of arbitration or the council of 
conciliation, or we and all the other signatory powers would unite 
against her. The very language of the third proposal is: 

The signatory powers shall jointly use forthwith, both their economic and 
military forces against any one of their number that goes to war or commits acts 
of hostility against another of the signatories before any question arising shall be 
submitted as in the foregoing. 

The discussion as to this league would not be complete without 
the voice that cries that it would be unconstitutional. We may 
entangle ourselves by agreement to defend the national independ- 
ence of Panama or Cuba, we may agree not to use dum-dum bullets 
or to engage in privateering, we may agree to arbitrate our differ- 
ences about the Alabama claims or the Newfoundland fisheries, 
but we must not agree to present future disputes to any tribunal 



A League to Enforce Peace 199 

or council before we plunge ourselves and perhaps the world in 
war. There are always those to assert that it is unconstitutional 
to do whatever they do not want done; but the Constitution of the 
United States contains few limitations of the treaty-making power 
and none that prohibit such treaties as are involved in establishing 
a league to enforce peace. It is not proposed to take away the 
treaty making power, but to act under it. We are a sovereign nation 
for the assumption of obligations as well as for the assertion of 
rights. The obligations we assume will be far outweighed by the 
rights we shall gain. Whatever it may cost will be but a fraction of 
the tax in manhood and in money that is involved in preparation 
for war, to say nothing of participation in war. 

The allied powers in their reply to President Wilson give to the 
previous statements of the responsible statesmen of most of the 
great neutral and belligerent nations, including Germany, this solcnm 
sanction : 

In a general way they (the Allies) desire to declare their respect for the lofty 
sentiments inspiring the American note and their whole-hearted agreement with 
the proposal to create a league of nations which shall assure peace and justice 
throughout the world. 

They recognize all the benefits which will accrue to the cause of humanity 
and civilization from the institution of international arrangements designed to 
prevent violent conflicts between nations and so framed as to provide the sanc- 
tions necessary to their enforcement, lest an illusorj' security should serve merely 
to facihtate fresh acts of aggression. 

Here then is a proposal, which, so far as it goes, as useful as 
it may prove, whether it succeeds or fails in accomplishing all its 
advocates expect, is at least a move in the right direction. It will 
at least diminish the causes and the occasions of war. Therefore we, 
the people of the United States, desiring peace, willing to take our 
part in the great family of nations, should be willing to contribute 
whatever is necessary to further the most practical plan which has 
thus far been suggested for avoiding another unspeakable catas- 
trophe such as the one now plunging the world in- misery; and thus 
to aid those forces which work for civilization and for the peaceful 
progress of mankind. 



200 The Annals of the American Academy 



OUR COMPULSORY ARBITRATION TREATIES SHOULD 
BE AMENDED 

By George W. Wickersham, 
New York. 

As a preface to the statements I am about to make, I must state 
that I am strongly opposed to the United States of America becom- 
ing a party to a League for the Maintenance of Peace or any other 
form of permanent international alliance. The counsel of Wash- 
ington is in my opinion as wise today as it was in 1796, and it still is 

our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the 
■ foreign world Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable estab- 
lishments on a respectable defensive posture, we can safely trust to temporary 
alUances for extraordinary emergencies. , 

During more than a thousand years, many experiments have 
been attempted at securing a continued peace in the world by means 
of compacts, alliances and treaties. All have failed to gain more 
than temporary breathing spells in the long history of human strife. 
Conflicting or coincident interests and ambitions are more powerful 
than written stipulations. The century of peace with Great Britain 
which we celebrated a short time ago was the result of no peace 
compact, but the product of common traditions, like moral stand- 
ards and similar interests. Even the Constitution of the United 
States, the most perfect example of a ''League for the Maintenance 
of a Just and Durable Peace," was ineffectual, despite identity of 
tradition and language, to prevent one of the bloodiest wars in his- 
tory among the states composing the LTnion, and a durable peace 
was secured only by removing the institution of slavery whose con- 
tinued existence created an irrepressible conflict stronger than any 
written compact. 

There is a positive danger to our essential national interests in 
looking to others to secure for us those conditions which strong 
nations should themselves obtain and keep. The period of frantic 
effort to put away all sense of responsibility to prepare our nation 
to defend its vital interests by force of arms, through which we have 
passed in the last few years, among other ways found expression in 
the making of a large number of ill-considered international agree- 
ments which, now that our national eyes are reopened to actualities, 



Our Compulsory Arbitration Treaties 201 

we would do well to abrogate before becoming entangled by their 
provisions in serious international embarrassments. 

The Tagehlatt, of Berlin, a recognized government organ, has 
commented upon President Wilson's war message of April 2, by- 
saying: 

We realize now what a big mistake it was that German policy saw fit to refuse 
to conclude the Bryan peace treaty such as England and other powers entered 
into with the United States. If such a contract existed today the United States 
would be compelled to submit even the gravest differences to a court or arbitra- 
tion before breaking relations. This would mean gaining at least a year. It is 
not at all impossible that President Wilson in his embarrassment would have taken 
that course to get away from the serious position into which his one track policy 
has led him.i 

This expression pointedly calls attention to the possible effect 
upon our national interests of the series of treaties which under the 
pacifistic emotionalism of William Jennings Bryan, when Secretary 
of State, the United States was induced to promote and enter into 
with most of the European countries (with the exception of Ger- 
many, Austria and Turke30,- with many of the South and Central 
American countries,^ and with China. These treaties, ratified by 
the Senate during the years 1914 and 1915, committed the United 
States to submit all disputes which may arise between the contract- 
ing parties concerning questions of an international character, which 
cannot be solved by direct diplomatic negotiation and are not em- 
braced in the terms of any treaty of arbitration in force between 
them, to a commission for investigation and report, with the agree- 
ment that the parties will not declare war or begin hostilities pending 
the investigation and report of such commission. Chile and Uru- 
guay reserved from the operation of the agreement questions affect- 
ing their vital interests, and in the case of Uruguay, those affecting 
its honor. Previous to Mr. Bryan's advent in the state department, 
the United States had been foremost in the extension by treaty of 
the principle of deciding by arbitration all disputes with foreign 
nations justiciable iu their nature and not involving matters purely 
of national policy. 

^New York Times, April 5, 1917. 

2 That is with France, Great Britain, Spain, Russia, Italy, Norway, Sweden, 
Denmark, Portugal. 

' Peru, Paraguaj^ Uruguay, Ecuador, BoUvia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Hon- 
duras, Haiti. 



202 The Annals of the American Academy 

The Senate of the United States always had been careful to 
preserve its prerogative under the Constitution of ratifying or con- 
curring in the making of every treaty negotiated by the President, 
and in consenting to the ratification of the convention for the pacific 
settlement of international disputes formulated at the Hague Con- 
ference of 1907, the Senate expressly resolved that: 

Nothing contained in this convention shall be so construed as to require the 
United States of America to depart from its traditional policy of not intruding 
upon, interfering with or entanghng itself in the poUtical questions of policy or 
internal administration of any foreign state; nor shall anything contained in the 
said convention be construed to imply a reUnquishment by the United States of 
its traditional attitude toward purely American questions. 

The resolution further recited that the approval of the con- 
vention was given with the understanding that recourse to the per- 
manent court for the settlement of differences could be had only by 
agreement thereto, through general or special treaties of arbitration 
theretofore or thereafter concluded between the parties in dispute. 

Following the Hague Conference of 1907, arbitration conven- 
tions were entered into with Great Britain and France, dated August 
3, 1911, each of which provided as follows: 

All differences hereafter arising between the high contracting parties which 
it has not been possible to adjust by diplomacy, relating to international matters, 
in which the high contracting parties are concerned by virtue of claim of right 
made by one against the other, by treaty or otherwise, and which are justiciable in 
their nature, by reason of being susceptible of decision by the application of the 
principles of law or equity, shall be submitted 

to arbitration under the provisions of the convention. In order 
that there might be no possible doubt as to the meaning of these 
words, the Senate, in ratifying the treaties, did so upon the expressed 
understanding 

to be made part of such ratification that the treaty does not authorize the sub- 
mission to arbitration of any question which affects the admission of aliens into 
the United States or the territorial integrity of the several states or of the United 
States, or concerning the question of the alleged indebtedness or moneyed obliga- 
tions of any state of the United States, or any question which depends upon or 
involves the maintenance of the traditional attitude of the United States con- 
cerning American questions, commonly described as the Monroe Doctrine, or 
other purely governmental poUcy. 

Perhaps one of the strongest motives which led to this careful 
avoidance of committing the United States to arbitrate, or submit 



Our Compulsory Arbitration Treaties 203 

to investigation by a commission, questions purely of national 
policy, lay in the determination, which certainly during nearly a 
century and until the year 1913 controlled the action of the Ameri- 
can government, under whatever political administration, that the 
Monroe Doctrine was a definite poHcy of the United States, which 
it had itself adopted as essential to its national interests, and which 
it would not consent to submit to question by any other power. 
The excessive zeal of Secretary Bryan to make it impossible under 
any conditions for the United States to enter upon war, led to the 
abandonment of this salutary principle of national protection in the 
twenty odd treaties negotiated by him in 1913 and 1914 above 
referred to. Some students of those treaties and their effect already 
have maintained that they bind the United States to submit to 
arbitration even disputes which may involve the Monroe Doctrine 
under the provisions of those compacts. 

Fortunately for us, as the Berliner Tageblatt has pointed out, 
Germany and her aUies did not accept Mr. Bryan's invitation to 
enter into similar agreements with us, nor has Japan or Mexico 
done so. It is my belief that there are some questions which no 
nation can afford to submit to the determination of any outside 
tribunal, and there are some questions which cannot be submitted 
even to a commission of inquiry for consideration under an agreement 
that war shall not be made until the commission of inquiry submits 
its report. The present controversy with Germany affords a striking 
example of that fact. The final issue upon which we have broken 
with Germany is with respect to her right to wage a submarine war- 
fare against all neutral vessels, our own included, which penetrate a 
zone drawn by her about the British Islands and the coast of France. 
Had she been a party to one of these Bryan treaties, we should have 
been bound by the treaty to submit to a commission appointed in 
accordance with the treaty the question whether or not Germany 
was justified in the adoption of her submarine policy, or if we were 
justified in considering it a casus belli. The commission would 
have had one year within which to make an investigation, and Ger- 
many, continuing her submarine warfare, would have disclaimed 
our contention that she was making war upon us, averred that she 
was merely pursuing a method of war against the allied powers, and 
maintained that we could avoid all injury to our interests by keep- 
ing our ships away from the prohibited zone. This being the dis- 



204 The Annals of the American Academy 

puted point required to be submitted to a commission, would have 
prevented us from forcibly protecting our own interests, except at 
the cost of violating our treaty obligations. Under such conditions, 
it is more than probable we should have proceeded against Germany 
despite the treaty, and perhaps the most objectionable feature of 
these universal Bryan treaties is that they will inevitably tend to a 
breach of their own provisions under stress of circumstances. 

That it is by no means an idle surmise that even the American 
government might disregard a treaty obligation which was found 
to be embarrassing, is demonstrated by the action of our state 
department within the past few months concerning the treaty nego- 
tiated by Secretary Bryan with Nicaragua. The facts of this case 
ought to be more widely known by the American people. On August 
5, 1914, a convention or treaty was entered into between the United 
States and Nicaragua, known as the Bryan-Chamorro treaty, 
whereby Nicaragua ceded to the United States certain rights for 
the construction of a ship canal across the so-called Nicaraguan 
route, and in order to enable the government of the United States 
to protect the Panama Canal and the proprietary rights granted in 
connection with the canal route across Nicaragua, Nicaragua fur- 
ther leased for ninety-nine years to the United States government 
certain islands in the Caribbean Sea and granted the right to the 
United States during that period to maintain a naval base on the 
Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific side, with the right to a renewal of 
such lease and occupation for a further term of ninety-nine years. 
Costa Rica, Salvador and Honduras protested against this treaty 
upon the ground that it impaired their existing sovereign rights 
with respect to the waters and territory embraced within the con- 
cessions. The claims of Costa Rica were particularly strong being 
founded upon an award made by President Cleveland in March, 
1888, as arbitrator of a dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. 
The United States Senate, in ratifying the treaty, adopted a reso- 
lution declaring that nothing therein contained was intended to 
affect any existing right of any of the above named states. But 
this declaration did not satisfy either of them, and accordingly they 
appealed to the Central American Court of Justice, a species of 
Hague Tribunal, which Mr. Root when Secretary of State pro- 
cured to be established in Central America, some ten years ago, for 
the purpose of furnishing a means of settling without war questions 



Our Compulsory Arbitration Treaties 205 

and controversies arising among the sister republics of Central 
America. Costa Rica and Salvador separately presented to that 
court their respective objections to the treaty and the facts upon 
which each claimed that Nicaragua had no right without its con- 
sent to undertake to grant to the United States the rights sought to 
be conferred by the treaty. Nicaragua, under the influence of the 
United States, and it appears to be undisputed, at the suggestion 
of the state department, ignored the order of the Central American 
Court of Justice calling upon it to answer the claim of Costa Rica, 
and refused to submit its right to make the concessions to the court, 
although the convention creating the court provided for the sub- 
mission to it, without restriction, of all controversies or questions 
that may arise between the contracting parties whatever their 
nature and whatever their origin. The court thereupon proceeded 
ex -parte to examine the claims of Costa Rica, and on September 30, 
1916, it rendered a solemn judgment reviewing the facts and find- 
ing that Nicaragua was without right or power against the objection 
of Costa Rica to enter into the Bryan-Chamorro treaty with the 
United States. Nicaragua promptly notified Costa Rica that it 
would not respect or abide by the decision. On October 30, 1916, 
Costa Rica officially advised the United States of the decision and 
the attitude assumed by Nicaragua, but up to the present time the 
United States has taken no steps to uphold the action of the court 
which was her own creation. 

It is true that the United States was not technically a party to 
that proceeding, but morally she was, and as the great sponsor of 
the principle of the universal arbitration of international disputes, 
it certainly ill became her to encourage Nicaragua to disregard the 
summons to inquiry by or to flout the decision of the tribunal which 
the United States had procured to be organized for the very purpose 
of passing upon such questions. The award of the Central American 
Court of Justice so made will certainly be followed by a claim against 
the United States by Costa Rica under the Hague Convention, or 
otherwise, calling for submission to the Hague Tribunal, or some 
other court, of the question whether or not by entering into the 
convention with Nicaragua above referred to, the United States 
had not invaded the rights of Costa Rica and Salvador and sought 
to acquire something without the consent of those nations which 
could only properly be granted with that consent. It is difficult to 



206 The Annals of the American Academy 

see how the United States could refuse to arbitrate that question 
and she will enter upon the controversy handicapped by the attitude 
of urging upon a small nation a treaty concession claimed to invade 
the sovereign rights of another small nation, and preventing the 
submission of the question to inquiry or arbitration before a court 
of her own creation. The lesson of this incident should be greater 
caution against indiscriminate treaty making for sentimental pur- 
poses. 

But even more serious is the effect upon the principle of interna- 
tional arbitration of the attitude of the United States government 
towards the great Central American tribunal she called into exist- 
ence in 1907. Not only did the United States encourage Nicaragua 
to enter into treaty relations with her in disregard of the rights of 
her neighbors, but her course has necessarily discredited the tribunal 
she helped to create for the purpose of settling just such disputes as 
she created when she entered into the treaty with Nicaragua. 

The effect of treaties of the Bryan type upon the national policy 
of the United States known as the Monroe Doctrine is a matter for 
serious consideration. Beyond any question, after the war is over, 
Germany will seek expansion for her commerce in the western hemi- 
sphere. Germany's method in the past has been to conduct her 
commercial expansion wholly under governmental agencies. The 
expansion of German trade in South America means the establish- 
ment by Germany of coaling stations and naval bases and the ac- 
quisition of political control over portions of South and Central 
America. It is well understood that the purchase by the United 
States of the Island of St. Thomas was for the purpose of preventing 
it from falling into the hands of Germany. But suppose that after 
the war Germany should purchase from Holland the territory of 
Dutch Guiana, and information of the acquisition should come to 
us only after the purchase was completed. We should, unless we 
completely depart from our traditional policy, regard that as an 
invasion of our rights under the Monroe Doctrine and challenge 
the acquisition. True, we have no Bryan treaty with Germany, 
nor, it chances, with Holland, and in that particular instance, there- 
fore, we should not be embarrassed by the stipulations of such a com- 
pact. But suppose Germany undertook to purchase from Ecuador 
or Bolivia, with each of whom we have Bryan treaties, would we 
stop and submit to a commission for investigation and report the 



Our Compulsory Arbitration Treaties 207 

right of either of those countries to cede territory to Germany, and 
in the meantime allow German officials to establish themselves in 
the acquired territory? Such a course would bo absurd. Ab- 
stractly, each of those countries has a right to do what it wills with 
its own. But as a national policy for the protection of our national 
interests we have declared that we should view as a deliberately 
unfriendly act the effort of any European nation to extend its gov- 
ernmental system to this hemisphere. We may maintain that posi- 
tion if we will. No other nation can settle for us the question 
whether or not we shall do so. 

The fact is that during the period of what Rudyard Kipling so 
well calls our "drugged and doubting years," a widespread theory 
prevailed that all international strife in the future could be avoided 
by entering into compacts with foreign nations agreeing to arbitrate 
or refer to commissions for report all questions at difference. But 
nations after all are but aggregations of individuals; and the experi- 
ence of individuals demonstrates the fact that the best drawn con- 
tracts imaginable do not always prevent litigation, and the principal 
value of compacts between nations as in the case of individuals is to 
afford, first, a definition of their respective interests and claims 
towards each other; and second, a moral barrier against hasty and 
unconsidered hostilities. No contracts or treaties, however well 
devised, have ever proved effective against the strong sentiment of 
a nation. Wise and prudent statesmanship should prevent a nation 
from entering into obligations which it can readily be foreseen would 
prove an embarrassment in time of stress and probably would not, 
possibly could not, be observed, except in cases where it would be 
as easy to negotiate a convention applicable to the particular cir- 
cumstances as to rely upon a general convention whose terms might 
be broad enough to provide for the particular exigency. 

In the general readjustment and reconsideration of affairs inci- 
dent to our war with Germany, it would be well for the Senate to 
take up these Bryan peace treaties and negotiate modifications of 
them to make them accord with the unljroken American poHcy of 
a century and with our sound national principles, so that we shall 
not be confronted with embrassments of our own making in cases 
where our national interests require prompt and not dilatory action. 



208 The Annals of the American Academy 



A YEARNING FOR WORLD PEACE 

By James M. Beck, 
New York. 

In discussing this question of the possibiHty of a just and a 
durable peace, if we apply the generous generalizations, that are 
always advanced in the discussion of the problems of war and peace 
to concrete illustrations in either current or past history, I think 
we will always find that the empirical remedies for war, whether 
sought by international arbitration or leagues to enforce peace, or 
mediation, fail in giving any final or completely satisfactory solu- 
tion. 

While statesmen, in their public utterances on the question, 
are not intentionally insincere, yet collectively every nation is 
more or less insincere in its protestations with respect to the sub- 
ject. To confine our comments and criticisms to our own country, 
this nation has been the foremost exponent of the doctrine of inter- 
national arbitration, and it has gone to extremes, verbal extremes, 
to which the responsible statesmen of no other nation have ever 
gone with respect to the lengths to which they would go in adjust- 
ing quarrels without resort to arms. And yet, in the Hague Con- 
vention and also in the Algeciras Convention, to participate in 
which we were invited by the European powers, we were quite wil- 
ling to go there and indulge in an academic discussion of the possi- 
bilities of effecting a just and durable peace, but we were always 
careful to add the proviso that this should in no respect interfere 
with the continued efficacy of the Monroe Doctrine. That, of 
course, meant, not merely that we would not always apply the reme- 
dies which we otherwise advocated to any problem that would 
arise in the western hemisphere, but it also meant that we would 
not apply the same remedy in any European quarrel. Quite 
ignoring the solidarity of humanity and the fact that steam and 
electricity have woven the civilized world into a great organic unit, 
we have always, until the last few months, persistently disclaimed 
any legitimate standing with respect to the great questions of 
European politics. 

So that with all our generous and eloquent advocacy of inter- 
national arbitration, participation in it was always accompanied by 



A Yearning for World Peace 209 

a very obvious and almost fatal limitation. When in England last 
summer, I was paid the great compliment of being invited to meet 
Sir Edward Grey. Of course I was very glad to go and I found this 
great, thoughtful, well-poised statesman quite willing to disclose his 
thoughts to me on a subject which was very vital and close to his 
heart, namely, the problem of world peace. A friend of mine in 
London told me that, immediately after the world war began and 
England entered into it because of the invasion of Belgium, he was 
sent for by Sir Edward Grey. When he entered Sir Edward Grey's 
room, he found him in tears, and Sir Edward Grey then said to him 
— and this was after England had issued its ultimatum to Germany 
— "All the dreams of my life have fallen like a pack of cards." No 
one who has followed Sir Edward Grey's career and who remembers 
the almost fatal hesitancy with which he held back his country in the 
matter of intervening in behalf of Russia and France will doubt 
that Sir Edward Grey was as great a pacifist as a statesman. In 
discussion with him I spoke of how wonderfully the peace of the 
world could be promoted if only Great Britain, France and the 
United States, the three great democracies of civilization, could 
cooperate, not by any organic alliance with Siamese-twin-like liga- 
ture, but by an entente by which they would pledge, not as a matter 
of solemn contractural obligation or with red stamps and red 
seals, but pledge in equity and good faith, with the moral sanction 
of three great and noble nations, their joint endeavors to promote 
peace with justice in civilization. Sir Edward Grey said to me in 
substance: ''Mr. Beck, suppose that Great Britain would enter into 
a league to enforce peace with the United States," and he added, 
"Great Britain would gladly enter into any feasible or practicable 
form of cooperation with any civilized nation that would ensure 
peace to the world, but if we did, what reason have you to believe 
that the United States would cooperate and assume its share of the 
joint obligation and really take an active part" — of course, I am 
paraphrasing his words — "in enforcing that which the league 
thought to be just under a given state of circumstances?" 

Well, that set me to thinking after I had left him, and I have 
thought of it very often since. Because after all, while the United 
States was willing to enter into very sweeping arbitration treaties 
— that of Mr. Brj^an for example, by which a breathing spell of a 
year was to be given to consider the facts of any given controversy, 



/ 

210 The Annals of the American Academy 

and that of Mr. Taft, who was willing to enter into the most sweep- 
ing obligations to arbitrate, even though questions of national honor 
were involved — yet be it remembered that while Mr. Bryan and 
President Taft were both sincere in their advocacy of their plans, it 
may be doubted whether, if we reduced the literal words of either 
plan to some concrete instance, either of them really meant what 
he said, because it is inconceivable that so noble and patriotic a 
statesman as President Taft would be willing to submit to arbitra- 
tion questions which affect the honor of the country because a ques- 
tion that affects its honor is not a justiciable question about which 
men may reasonably differ. It is either some great question of 
national interest, which overrides all other considerations, or else 
it is a question where a wanton wrong is sought to be inflicted upon 
our country and we are asked to arbitrate whether a given nation 
shall inflict this wanton and deliberate wrong upon us. President 
Taft never could have meant, because he is too patriotic, that he 
would arbitrate such a question; nor did Mr. Bryan mean that if 
such a question arose, a year should be allowed to pass pending a 
discussion of the question, which would not even admit of discus- 
sion. Thus, we see illustrated the besetting sin of our public men, 
to say in a spirit of generous enthusiasm more than they really 
mean. 

To my mind, the great difficulty of the whole problem Hes in 
this. Questions are either justiciable or non-justiciable. That is a 
lawyer's phrase and like most lawyer's phrases, it perhaps obscures 
rather than illuminates thought. When we speak about a justici- 
able quarrel, what do we mean? We mean a question about 
which men maj^ reasonably differ. It may be a question of fact or 
of international law. Or it may even be a question of some ethical 
standard not yet of sufficient universal sanction as to be embodied in 
that great heritage of civilization that we call international law. 
But in all events, it presupposes two things: first, that the question 
of fact or law is reasonably debatable; and second, that both par- 
ties to the controversy only want that which is just, and therefore, 
the controversy presents an honest difference of opinion which 
requires an impartial tribunal to elucidate. 

Those are just the questions that generally would not result 
in war in any event. Because war is such a stupendous horror there 
is no nation, no matter what its spirit of mifitarism may be, that de- 



A Yearning for World Peace 211 

sires to enter into the ordeal of battle upon a question which is 
merely a difference of opinion with respect to something that is 
debatable and which can be determined by some known standard 
of law or ethics. 

The questions that are real subjects of war, the underlying 
subjects of war, are the questions which go either to national honor, 
because some wanton affront is about to be perpetrated upon one 
of two nations, or it is some great question of national honor and 
policy which rises so much above the ordinary conventions and 
standards of international law that no race is willing in such a 
controversy to bind up its destinj^ in red tape or define and limit its 
progress by a red seal. 

Take as an illustration, the question before us in this very war. 
The question, primarily and on the surface, was one of international 
arbitration, and if ever there was a nation which, because of its 
advocacy for some generations of international arbitration, should 
have supported the theorj^ of Russia, France and Great Britain, 
it was the United States. Why? Because on the surface of that 
quarrel, the principle of international arbitration was the imme- 
diate issue. Austria had served an ultimatum upon Serbia. 
Serbia had accepted all the terms of that ultimatum except two, 
really except one, and that was, on its face, a perfectly justiciable 
question — whether or not the guilt or innocence of certain Serbian 
officials should be determined by a mixed tribunal in which Austria 
should be represented, or whether it should be determined solely by 
the courts of Serbia. 

That was a question about which men could reasonably differ. 
It was a question which, if referred to The Hague — an international 
tribunal could have been constituted — which would have taken the 
question out of the courts of either Austria or Serbia, and the guilt 
or innocence of the Serbian officials, alleged to be responsible for the 
murder of the Archduke at Serajevo, could have been determined by 
a dispassionate inquiry of an international tribunal. But that very 
principle of international arbitration was refused. 

If that were all the quarrel, it would be plain that on the refusal 
of Austria and Germany to arbitrate a perfectly justiciable question, 
Russia, England and France determined to accept the gage of battle 
in order to vindicate the principle of arbitration. But after all, 
considered philosophically, the subject was much deeper than that. 



212 The Annals of the American Academy 

That was the superficial cause. It was not the underlying cause. 
The underlying cause was that great movement of races, which 
moves as slowly and resistlessly as that great glacier that comes 
down from the dome of Mont Blanc and never ends until it touches 
the valley of Chamonix; and those questions of national destiny 
cannot be arbitrated because no nation under present conditions of 
thought is willing to limit by the terms of red tape or a red seal its 
progress, either as a race or as a nation. I do not mean to intimate 
that Germany and Austria were justified in refusing arbitration. 
The Serbian quarrel did not justify the world war. 

Therefore, it seems to me that all suggestions with respect to 
peace may minimize the causes of war, as undoubtedly they do, 
and may offer the available machinery for the proper and orderly 
adjudication of international controversies, about which nations 
would probably not fight in any event, because they are justiciable, 
yet when great questions of national and racial destiny arise a pa- 
cific adjustment of the matter cannot be found in lawyers' 
agreements to arbitrate. Then unhappily follows Darwin's strug- 
gle for existence with its survival of the fittest. 

The peace of the world must primarily be founded upon that 
which is infinitely higher than peace, viz., justice in the world. 
There never can be a real peace without justice, and unless we first 
maintain justice in civilization, there will never be any durable 
peace. Unfortunately, temporarily or permanently, justice must 
often, both in the lives of individuals and in the lives of nations, be 
maintained by force. 

I say, therefore, that the League to Enforce Peace is not a 
practicable way because nations diverge so greatly in their ideals and 
their interests, in their relative power, in their racial destiny, that 
any league to enforce peace would be as futile as the Holy Alliance 
was, though perhaps for a different reason. Such a compact would 
share the fate of all other leagues between sovereign nations. 
Sooner or later the league would break up into contending groups, 
and, far from minimizing war, a quarrel in such a league would tend 
to spread the horrors of war over a greater part of the world than 
would have been the case if the quarrel had simply been one be- 
tween two nations. 

I have no satisfactory solution to offer, because the question 
of peace is like the question of justice. You know what George 



A Yeakning fob World Peace 213 

Eliot said in Roniola: that justice was "like the kingdom of God: 
it was not without us as a fact, it was within us as a great yearning." 
Without admitting the application of her conclusion to the kingdom 
of God, yet it is true of justice. It is a great ideal, a great goal 
toward which we laboriously and painfully struggle through the 
centuries; and so it is with the peace of the world. I believe the 
nearest approach at the present hour towards maintaining justice 
in civilization, and therefore, peace — because if the forces that 
make for justice are more powerful than those that make for injus- 
tice, justice will be, therefore, promoted— will be for nations of 
kindred ideals and of kindred interests to cooperate to maintain 
this peace. 

For that reason, I regard the great events that occurred on 
April 4 as the most hopeful for the human race that I have seen in 
my whole lifetime. I had thought that the American nation had 
been wrong in disclaiming any fair share of the burdens of civiliza- 
tion and of its portion of the collective responsibility of civilization 
for the maintenance of peace and order and justice, and therefore, 
when on April 2 the President of the United States, in that extraor- 
dinary address to Congress — one of the noblest, I think, that has 
come from the President of the United States in the history 
of our country — put aside our traditional past, forswore, in the name 
of his countrymen, our selfish isolation, and determined that this 
countrj^ should play its part and play it like a man in the great 
work of civilization; when, following that great event, there came 
facts that must powerfully appeal to the imagination of men who 
are not wholly destitute of imagination, when for example a Texan 
youth, with a flag of our country at the end of his rifle, climbed 
Vimy Ridge, and, with the moral sanction and authority of our 
government, unfurled our flag upon one of the most redoubtable 
strongholds of Germany in northern France, then it seemed to me 
that this great nation was closing one volume of its history and 
beginning a new one, an even more glorious one than the past, for 
every volume of our epic history has been more glorious than the 
past. 

Colonial America was glorious, but it became greater when it 
became independent America. Independent America was great, 
but it became greater when under Jefferson it became continental 
America. Continental America was great, but it became gi'eater 



214 The Annals of the American Academy 

under Lincoln, when it became a consolidated and united America. 
It is an infinitely greater fact that, following the splendid message 
of the President and the concurring sanction of the Congress of the 
United States, in whose hands the final determination of our foreign 
poHcies must rest, this nation became cosmopolitan America. 

Understand, this new volume of our history will have many 
dark chapters in it. Any person who thinks that the peace of the 
world is going to result from this war is the victim, in my judgment, 
of a monstrous illusion. There can never be peace in the world 
as long as there is hatred and injustice in the world, and this war 
has engendered hates of such tremendous intensity, which have 
gone so to the very roots of human beings, that the man is blind, it 
seems to me, who thinks, whether Germany and Austria win or 
whether England, France and Russia win, that there can ever be any 
good feeling between the two groups of nations in the life of this 
generation. Neither the vanquished nor the victors are going to 
be wholly satisfied, much less are they going to feel any reasonable 
kindliness towards each other; and therefore, we are entering the 
most portentous, the most terrible, the most menacing half-century 
the world has ever known. 

No human being can tell what the outcome will be. All we 
know now is that we are in it. It does not matter whether the 
traditions of the past have hitherto forbidden it. We are past that. 
No one statesman, no one party, not even the instinct of the people, 
involved us. The logic of world events drove us in, for better or 
for worse, and we are in for generations and centuries to come. 

The only question is: what is our spiritual preparedness? 
How far are we ready to play a man's part in the world? Our 
vast wealth and resources will take care of our material prepared- 
ness, after the usual muddling which is characteristic of all demo- 
cratic governments. We have too much genius and resourcefulness 
not to ultimately make good use of our infinite and predominant 
material resources. But we must consider the spiritual prepara- 
tion. It is this which gives me, as one who advocated from the 
beginning of this world war the participation of the United States 
in it, the most concern. What is the response of the American 
people to President Wilson's noble address? Are we capable of the 
great destiny that is opening before us? Are we capable of playing 
a man's part in the most prodigious chapter of human history that 
is about to be written? 



A Yearning for World Peace 215 

I read in a recent copy of the Philadelphia Record that in one day 
in this city of noble and glorious traditions and of one million and 
a half people there were just fifty-six enlistments, and I see that 
twelve thousand men attended a baseball game. In our whole 
country, in ten days following the inspiring message of President 
Wilson, there were exactly forty-five hundred recruits. If you take 
the full military strength of the United States, that means when 
the United States stepped into the most desperate conflict of his- 
tory, if Germany and Austria, should they win, turn upon us, our 
territorj^, indeed, even our national existence, might be menaced. 
In ten days following one of the most inspiring calls to arms that this 
or any nation ever had, just one in three thousand miUtary effectives 
enlisted. 

I sometimes wonder whether the American people are not still 
more interested in baseball and the "movies" than they are in the 
European War. I think their interest in the world war has always 
been largely an academic one. I think they like to read about 
it; they find it very entertaining. I think they take a certain 
academic interest in thinldng about the justice of its causes; but 
this is true, that to the great mass of the American people, the fact 
that this is our war, that we are as much interested in its underlying 
issues as any nation, has not come home to them with any over- 
whelming or convincing force. 

About a year ago I sat at luncheon with a governor .and an at- 
torney-general of one of the great states of the Union, and I was very 
anxious to know what was the opinion in this state with respect to 
the European War. I asked the governor the question and he re- 
plied, "Well, Mr. Beck, do you want me to be entirely frank? 
When cotton is up, we are entirely satisfied; and when it is down, 
we are cross with Great Britain and its restrictions of our commerce." 

I said, "Do you mean that, governor? Do you mean that in 
the most stupendous crisis, perhaps, the world has ever known, 
certainly the greatest in interest to every nation, one which is 
going to determine the destiny of the human race for centuries — do 
you mean to tell me that the sole interest in your state is measured 
by the price of cotton?" He thereupon turned to his attorney- 
general and said, "What do you think about it?" The attorney- 
general said, "Governor, you are entirely right. The great mass 
of our people are interested in the price of cotton and they are not 



216 The Annals of the American Academy 

interested in any other phase of the war except in a purely academic 
way." 

Before we condemn that state too quickly, let us go west of the 
Alleghanies and we find it the same everywhere. Since the Presi- 
dent has committed us to the cause of civilization, since he has 
sounded the bugle call which should not know retreat, if we look 
over this vast sleeping giant of a hundred millions of people, we 
find it as unmoved as though a summer zephyr had passed over the 
waters of the Delaware — a slight ripple, but the deep undercurrents 
are as yet touched but little. 

And therefore I wonder what will arouse us out of our dream 
of isolation if a great, supreme convulsion like this European War 
cannot? What will rouse us and how are we going to be aroused? 
How are we going to teach the American people the great sig- 
nificance of this struggle? How are we going to give them a cos- 
mopolitan outlook? How are we going to make them feel that they 
are in the very heart of the world and that the Atlantic and the 
Pacific are nothing more than open highways over which hostile 
fleets could freely pass? In other words, how are we going to give 
this people that vision, without which it was said upon the authority 
of the wise man, this or any people will perish? 



MORAL INFLUENCES IN A DURABLE PEACE 
By Don C. Seitz, 

Manager, New York World, New York. 

To discuss the problems of a durable peace is to discuss a 
disease for which there are plenty of doctors but no cures. There 
have been many prescriptions for the perfection of peace, but in 
the end all seem to adopt that of Tacitus: "They make a solitude 
which they call peace." Somehow one comes, however reluctantly, 
to the conclusion that the vast chemistry of nature requires 
the slaughter of mankind at furious intervals, just as it seems 
to need the devastations of fire and flood and the cruel raids 
of epidemics. Guard ourselves as we may against flames from 
mortal causes, the lightnings come from the heavens to sere the luck- 
less earth. We may build dams and levees with all our strength and 
skill, but the raindrops from heaven gather and overwhelm the help- 



Moral Influences in a Durable Peace 217 

less land. We make sanitation a science, but the germ and microbe 
take new turns to rid the world of our persons. The human sacrifice 
seems as essential as ever it was in the temples of Baal, or on the 
altars of the Aztecs. What reform in railway transportation have 
we ever been able to effect without the slaughter of passengers or 
employes? When were ships ever amply equipped with boats or 
life preservers until some hideous disaster roused us to enforce pre- 
cautions? It takes the falling of an elevator with its crushed and 
mangled victims to produce the use of safeguards. Many must die 
in factory or tenement fires before the landlord can be made to put 
welfare ahead of profit. We preach much and practice little until 
forced by the chilling results of calamity, however much we maj^ 
have been advised of its coming. 

So too with war. Despite the teachings of Christ and the suf- 
ferings of the ages, it is our ever present peril. For two trembling 
years this nation remained out of the horror; our Cassandras kept 
calling: Prepare! Prepare! At last we do prepare. With the 
first preparations comes war! Surely as the seed produces grain, so 
do arms produce alarms, and alarms, war. Whatever reasons may 
be advanced by the students of world politics; whatever economic 
fictions may be urged, one thing stands out : the German Emperor 
having forged his tools for twenty-five years, and having reached 
middle life, determined beyond peradventure to go down into his- 
tory with Caesar, Alexander, Frederick the Great and Napoleon, 
the chief butchers of manldnd. Did you ever read the correspon- 
dence of the kings just before the outbreak? They were all cousins. 
They signed themselves "Willy," "Georgy" and "Nicky." To 
"Georgy's" last plea that he hold his hand, "Willy" answered: "It 
is too late. My armies are on the march!" He always intended 
it should be too late. His armies were always marching in his im- 
perial mind. But where all the time were the people who suffered 
"Willy" to enmesh them in a rule that permitted the armies to 
march on unprovoking people? Whence came the right to chain 
them into battalions and march them on to martial murder? 

It is history that the common people rarely make war. War 
begins either through oppressions or the obsessions of the great. 
The assailed, perforce, must fight. To save themselves from such 
assaults nations prepare by fitting themselves to commit reprisals or 
to resist. We have been reluctant here to feel that such a step would 



218 The Annals of the American Academy 

become necessary and even now make a slow business of it. That 
preparedness may be needful because of the aggressiveness of others 
I cannot deny. To the argument that it is an insurance for peace 
I do emphatically dissent. Montaigne once observed that the walls 
of his castle on the mountain from which he took his title were in 
bad repair. Indeed, there was more breach visible than bastion. 
His neighbors were always reproaching him for permitting such 
dilapidatedness to prevail and pointing out the peril he underwent. 
The philosopher answered by saying he had noted that the strongest 
defenses had to stand the most assaults. During twenty years no 
hostile force had ever tackled the mountain, but his well-walled 
neighbors had to withstand many a fierce foray! 

It is no time now to argue our own position. We have taken 
unexceptionable ground, even though departing wide from our 
ancient principles. World power means world responsibility, if we 
chose to make it so. The giant dechnes to remain longer supine. 
We do not greet the change eagerly. There is doubt in many an 
American mind as to the wisdom of so wide a purpose. Yet there 
could be no other justification save to aid the cause of universal 
democracy. If the task brings us to a world-state where rulers can 
be made the servants of the people, the die will have been well cast. 
But there are perils beyond. We, too, may forge tools that will cut 
their owners. We may take on a lust for conquest that will bring 
evil in its train. We will surely fill the minds of men with the ex- 
citement and confusion of war and when it is over these minds will 
not adjust themselves to the humdrum of an industrious and quiet 
life, but will remain idle and distracted to the end of their days. 
This is one of the greatest evils growing out of such a conflict. The 
dead and wounded count much, but the mentally disabled count far 
more. You need not worry over the European millions who are ex- 
pected to leap back into industry when released from the ranks of 
war. They will not leap. They will be stunned by their share in 
the great events. Their minds will not find room for common 
thoughts. They will ever be in trench or battle to the last of their 
days, menacing no industries but those of their own lands. 

What there is most to deplore is the breaking down of intel- 
lectual and moral influence, which I take it we are here trying to 
revive. The scholars and philosophers of Germany are the leaders 
in the upholding of strife. So it is across the world. We, here, 



Equipment for Post Bellum Period 219 

flout pacifists and call for deeds not words. The clergy are not 
preachin.o; the doctrine of peace and good-will, but fiercely calling 
for vengeance, and gentle woman rallies all her strength, not in 
shuddering remonstrance against the ruth of war, but in zealous 
urgings that husbands, sons and brothers shall take a hand. With 
all due respect to the good, they appear more belligerent than the 
fighting men, more insistent upon revenge. I am not speaking as a 
critic. I am trying to describe one of the great anomahes. As to 
the consummation for which all mankind should wish, a durable 
peace, based upon good-will and justice, I frankly beheve will never 
come. If it does it will be because some nation is brave enough to 
lay down its arms, dismantle its ships of war and say to all the world: 
"We have put aside the tools of conflict. We will be brothers to 
mankind and will abide the event, feeling that if our sacrifice fails 
the red will be on other hands than ours." 



EQUIPMENT FOR THE POST BELLUM PERIOD 

By Charles H. Sherrill, 
New York City. 

It seems to me that the most important equipment that our 
country can have for the part which it must play at the end of this 
war, is its state of mind. We in this country have had a proper and 
a high state of mind not once but several times. We rose in our 
might to gain our freedom. We cleaned our escutcheon of the 
black stain of slavery. ' W^e freed Cuba, and then, having freed her 
from a foreign enemy, we freed her from ourselves, not once, but 
twice. 

Maj'- I venture to suggest two vitally important movements 
through which we can help our country to improve its state of mind? 

The first and less important of these is that of so altering our 
mental attitude toward other nations that in our dealings with them, 
commercial, personal or diplomatic, we shall constantly grant full 
consideration to their point of view. I am personally under great 
obligations to our Government for permitting me to represent it 
for two years in the great Latin-American republic of Argentina, 
because my service there taught me our need for studj'ing and 



220 The Annals of the American Academy 

thereafter considering the point of view of other peoples. Foreign- 
ers are apt to approach almost any subject from a different angle 
than ourselves, and unless we take that fact into account we shall 
fall short of coming to a full understanding with them in personal 
relations, in business, or in governmental questions of an interna- 
tional character. We must learn to take thought of how the other 
man is thinking — it is courteous, it is good business, it is of vital 
importance to anyone pretending to statesmanship. Let us take 
as an example our relations with the other republics of the western 
hemisphere. We, as a nation, have a right to be proud of the 
historical fact that our intentions toward those peoples have al- 
ways been of the best and purest. But have we always considered 
their point of view upon international questions? Wouldn't our 
relations with them be greatly improved if, during our history, we 
had occasionally stopped to consider what they thought of the 
settlement of some question instead of going straight ahead to 
settle it according to our own views of right and wrong? I think we 
are all agreed upon this point, and especially those who, through 
living among South Americans, have come to know and, therefore, 
to like them as cordially as I do. 

You will find before this war has come to its bitter issue that the 
South Americans will all be found on the right side of the argument. 
They are a great people. They are not excitable or flighty as 
many of us beheve them to be. I shall never forget something 
that happened one night at the opera house in Buenos Aires. 
They have an opera house there which, in most particulars, is 
superior to the Metropolitan in New York. One night, for no 
particular reason, an anarchist threw a bomb in that audience. 
What happened? What would happen in New York City? 
I fear there would be panic and trouble. What happened 
down there was magnificent. The audience behaved very quietly, 
although a number of people were injured. The manager came 
out and stated very calmly that owing to an unfortunate accident 
it was impossible to continue the opera, and he asked the audi- 
ence to withdraw. The band played the national anthem and they 
filed quietly out. No one who saw that magnificent proof of na- 
tional poise and self-control can feel other than I do about those 
people. I believe that the Latins of South America, by coming 



Equipment for Post Bellum Period 221 

to the free soil of this hemisphere, have become steadied and 
Americanized, just as we Anglo-Saxons from northern Europe 
have been speeded up and Americanized, in the northern part of 
this hemisphere. In type we are approaching each other more and 
more. 

My second suggestion touching our national equipment for 
the post bellum period is vastly more important than my first. 
It is that we use this crisis in the world's affairs to cast ourselves 
back into the state of mind of our ancestors when they wrote into 
our Declaration of Independence that splendid acknowledgment 
of the Divine Source from Whom flows all our blessings of hfe, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Let me recall a picture to 
your minds. We are in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are 
assembled on the Green. It is the night before the fateful battle 
of Bunker Hill, that momentous test of whether raw levies of farmers 
can fight oft" trained troops and therefore win the freedom they so 
passionately desire. What preparation are those sturdy ancestors 
of ours making for the life and death struggle into which they are 
about to enter? What do we see just as the day is breaking? There 
is a hush, and then all those earnest armed Americans kneel rever- 
ently down and invoke the Divine Blessing upon their patriotic 
enterprise. Then rising lightly to their feet, they march off to 
meet the enemy. They go equipped with that splendid spirit which 
armed Cromwell's Roundheads, those earnest warriors who always 
united in prayer before going into battle. We have come a long 
ways since the War of the Revolution, and part of it has been down- 
hill, for we are not so earnest or so frank in our religion as were the 
heroes of those days. Recently I was reminded that the word reli- 
gion comes from the Latin "religio" — a tying-back. What we as 
a nation need most, both in the present crisis and to meet world 
conditions thereafter, is a tying-back to the Great Author of our 
being, — a continuing and not a mere Sunday contact with the great 
Power House above. Made powerful with that power we shall pass 
from being mere descendants of those who won and kept our 
liberty, to being worthy ancestors of a far greater American race, 
facing confidently forward and upward to the future which lies 
before. 



222 The Annals of the American Academy 

DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION OF THE COMING PEACE 
CONFERENCE 

By Edward A. Filene. 

A business man need not apoligize for concerning himself, in 
these unusual times, with the problems of international politics. 
They are today giving close consideration to international affairs 
not always so much from intellectual choice as from practical 
necessity. For the fact is that in the years succeeding this war 
business success, social advance and political progress will depend 
more on the kind of settlement that is made of this war than on the 
individual plans and initiative men and women bring to any partic- 
ular piece of work. 

If this war ends in the usual kind of settlement, no amount of 
private initiative can free business from the handicap of rival 
armaments and their crushing tax burdens, and the trade wars 
that are as certain to follow a patched up peace as night is to follow 
day. Therefore upon the ground of self-interest, if no higher reason 
existed, diplomacy becomes as legitimate a concern of business ad- 
ministration as are the costs of production. 

The stability and free development of the world's economic 
life demand a new kind of settlement of the war. There must be 
set up such joint guarantees of justice and peace that the nations 
will not be driven into an unprecedented rivalry in armaments 
which coupled with the enormous cost of reconstruction would give 
rise to taxation so heavy that, if indeed revolutions did not follow, 
trade wars would be inspired so destructive as to complicate the 
business hfe of the whole world. 

One of the things that this war has demonstrated is that 
foreign affairs are personal affairs for all of us, although in our easy- 
going moments we have acted as though foreign affairs do not con- 
cern the average man and are the exclusive property of diplomats 
operating behind the closed doors of secret council chambers. This 
war has proved that the blunder of an hour in a foreign office may 
undermine the results of a century of constructive domestic effort. 
All this means that when the time comes to write the treaty that will 
end this war there must be recognized with new emphasis the vital 
connection between diplomacy and the domestic development of 
nations. 



Democratic Organization of Peace Conference 223 

In a recent number of the Echo de Paris, Fernand Engerand, 
Deputy for Calvados, said: "The peace which will conclude this 
unparalleled war will be the greatest event in history, and the 
treaty which will ratify it must be a masterpiece." Speaking of 
the weakened condition in which Europe will come to the end of 
the war and of the desirability of assuring a long peace in which to 
recuperate he goes on to say: "A long, a very long peace is therefore 
necessary and this must be the main object of the treaty. The 
problem to be solved is, in fact, nothing less than to rebuild Europe, 
for to have a good peace it is necessary to have a good Europe." 
And now that we are in the war, we may say "to have a good peace 
it is necessary to have a good world." 

The conditions and problems which we will face after the war 
will depend in no small measure upon the type of peace that is 
made. If at the peace conference, a peace is made that will in 
reality be nothing but a latent war, then the nations now at war will 
be compelled to add, to the enormous fixed charges of war debts 
and the expenses of reconstruction, the continuing burden of 
another rivalry in armaments unprecedented in cost. In the same 
degree that this armed conflict has been unprecedented so will the 
armed peace that follows it be unprecedented in the extent of 
defensive preparation if the traditional peace is made. This trio 
of burdens — war debts, the expenses of reconstruction and the 
cost of another rivalry in armaments — will constitute a compelling 
pressure upon each European nation to undersell every other 
nation in the neutral markets, and will inspire one of the longest 
and most destructive trade wars of history. tSo we may reverse 
the statement of the French deputy "that to have a good peace 
it is necessarj'- to have a good world" and saj'- with equal truth "to 
have a good world it is necessary to have a good peace" — a sane 
settlement of the war. 

The two outstanding weaknesses of the peace conferences of 
the past have been: 

1. They have been dominated by diplomats who have represented a more or 
less fictitious entity — the state — rather than the masses of every-day people who 
in workshop, store, office, field and home constitute the nation. National prestige 
has overshadowed the common w^elfare of men. 

2. They have seldom brought creative statesmanship to bear upon the prob- 
lem of future securitJ^ Each peace of the past has carried with it the germs of 
future wars. 



224 The Annals of the American Academy 

The elimination of these two elements of weakness from the 
peace conference at the end of this war is fundamental to every 
social, industrial, pohtical and ethical program of the future. And 
I am convinced that the elimination of these two weaknesses, while 
depending much upon a changed mind, finally will depend upon 
the way the peace conference is organized. 

The membership of the coming peace conference must repre- 
sent a new and more wholesome diplomacy, marked by the follow- 
ing characteristics: 

1. It must be more modern. It must realize that its primary function is 
not to minister to an exaggerated sense of national prestige that smacks too much 
of the artificial honor of the old duelUng days, but it is rather a job of social 
engineering — so adjusting the relations of peoples that the energies of the world will 
flow into constructive rather than destructive channels. The men who frame the 
treaty at the end of this war should in reaUty be a group of men drawn from the 
basic work divisions of men in all nations whose experience would make them wise 
counsellors in the working out of a really scientific management of the world of 
nations. 

2. It must be more public. The traditional veil of secrecy that diplomacy 
has thrown over international affairs must be Mfted to the greatest practical extent. 
The time ought to be past when five or six men could rush half a world into war 
over night without consulting in some way the men and women who must bear 
the burdens of war. 

3. It must be more responsible. It is even more important that diplomacy 
be made responsible than that it be made public. It is, of course, neither practi- 
cal nor desirable always to spread the record of the foreign office on the front 
page of the morning paper. But there must be devised means by which the 
masses can have an increasing control over the game in which they themselves 
represent the stakes. Heretofore even the democracies have given a blank check 
to diplomacy, signed with their lives and their resources, and diplomacy has been 
privileged to fill in the amount. But hereafter democracy must audit the accounts 
of diplomacy. 

This plea for a greater democratization of diplomacy is fre- 
quently met with the statement that the man on the street is not 
interested in foreign affairs. That may have been so. But he is 
interested in his life, his family and his property, and this war has 
taught him how largely these are dependent upon diplomacy. 
The value and security of his job after the war depends in a very 
real sense on the way the war is settled. In our increasingly inter- 
dependent world he must become interested in this matter. He has 
never had a chance to be vitally interested, and as is true in every 
democratic experiment he will never learn but by the carrying of 



Democratic Organization of Peace Conference 225 

responsibility. But the average man probably has a deeper in- 
terest in international matters than we guess. This war has forced 
men whose thinking has never before gone beyond the bounds of a 
parish to think in world terms. 

I am convinced that the end of this war will offer the oppor- 
tunity for a decided step forward in the democratizing of diplomacy 
and in the reduction of the hazards of war for the future. 

All belligerents unite in saying that "security for the future" 
must be the guiding consideration of the peace treaty. It is clear, 
that a constructive peace that will safeguard the future is not 
probable unless the principles of the new diplomacy that 1 have 
outlined are in control of the peace conference. 

A more democratic organization of the peace conference, making 
it more representative of the fundamental interests of society, is 
the one move that, in my judgment, most nearly insures the secur- 
ing of the kind of peace the future interests of society demand. 

It will not be possible overnight to reconstruct diplomatic 
procedure; but the coming peace conference will be different from 
all that have preceded it and in that difference lies the hope of 
better things. The conference will come at the end of a war that, 
as I have pointed out, will have dramatized as never before three 
things : 

1. The necessity for guarantees against future wars. 

2. The fact that the world has become so interdependent that all nations are 
involved in the wars of any nations, even though not as combatants. 

3. The fact that modern war throws burdens upon all classes and all men 
whether soldiers or not; that the farmer, the merchant and the mechanic must 
sacrifice at home as the soldier sacrifices on the firing fine. 

With these facts so clearly proved, it seems to me that our 
government will have the opportunity, in the peace conference, of 
striking a new note in diplomacy. It will be pertinent to suggest 
that since the problem of security of the future underhes the for- 
tunes of all classes and is so intimately involved with the future 
industrial and social development of the world, there should be 
included in the membership of the conference responsible respresen- 
tatives of the fundamental interests of society, such as business, 
labor, agriculture, etc. Such a suggestion coming from the United 
States would doubtless bear great weight. The United States 
might well take the leadership in the making of diplomacy more 



226 The Annals of the American Academy. 

representative and responsible not only by suggesting such a policy 
to other nations, but by setting as an example the men it selects to 
represent it in the peace conference. 

If there should prove to be insurmountable obstacles to so complete 
a break with diplomatic traditions as the appointment of direct repre- 
sentatives of business, labor and agriculture would be, then might it 
not be feasible to attach to each diplomatic representative a counselor 
from each of the fundamental work divisions of society? 

It is the duty of every business man, of every professional man, 
of every thinker and worker, as the most important part of his plan- 
ning for the future, to study the forces that will shape the end-of-the- 
war-treaties, and to ally himself with his fellow citizens in an at- 
tempt to shape the treaties for the good of our own nation and the 
world. Because, as I said in the beginning — In the years succeeding 
this war business success, social advance and political progress will 
depend more on the kind of settlement that is made of this war than on 
the individual plans and initiative men and women bring to any 
particular piece of work. 



INDEX 



Arbitration Treaties, Our Compul- 
sory, Should be Amended. George 
W. Wickersham, 200-207. 

America: democracy, 10, 28; duties, 
127; internationalism, 7; interven- 
tion, 103; obligation to defend in- 
ternational right, 49; over-world 
trade, 22; principles, 101; public 
policies, 100; relations between 
Japan and, 129; relative imprepared- 
ness, 14-15. 

America and Durable Peace, Japan. 
Toyokichi lyenaga, 124-128. 

America Must Champion, The In- 
ternational Right. Roland G. 
Usher, 49-57. 

America, Planning the Future. 
Henry A. Wise Wood, 19-23. 

America, The Rights of Small Na- 
tions IN. Oswald Garrison Villard, 
165-171. 

American Democracy, The World 
Conflict in its Relation to. Wal- 
ter Lippmann, 1-10. 

American isolation, end of, 1. 

American Nations, The Rights op 
Small. Henry R. Mussey, 172-177. 

American policy, question of, 5. 

American Policy of Isolation, The 
Monroe Doctrine and teee, in Re- 
lation TO A Just and Durable 
Peace. John H. Latan6, 100-109. 

American standards, preservation, 68- 
69. 

Americans, security, 22. 

Anderson, Chandler P. Freedom of 
the Seas, 65-75. 

Armaments: competition, 95; reduction, 
92; rivalry, 223. 

Armies, reduction in size, 93. 

Austria; federalization, 156; taxation, 
157. 

Autocracy, definition, 8. 



Balch, Emily Greene. The War in 
its Relation to Democracy and 
World Order, 28-31. 

Balkan states: free development, 132; 
territorial reorganization, 133. 

B ARARAT, Mrs. Layyah a. A Mes- 
sage from Syria, 153-154. 

Beck, James M. A Yearning for 
World Peace, 208-216. 

Belgium: invasion, 4, 110, 209; na- 
tional unity, 149; neutralization, 89. 

Belligerents: interests, 66 ; service, 189. 

Blockade, abolition, 60. 

Bohemian Question, The. Charles 
Pergler, 155-160. 

British navy: accomplishments, 63; su- 
premacy, 5. 

Brown, Philip Marshall. Elements 
of a Just and Durable Peace, 76-83. 

Bullit, William C. A Basis for a 
Durable Peace between Germany 
and England, 113-117. 

Business administration, diplomacy, 
222. 

Civilization: burdens, 213; history, 
193; justice, 212; progress, 189, 192. 

Commerce, Nationality and Free- 
dom, Prerequisites to a Durable 
Peace. Stephen P. Duggan, 131-136. 

Commercial treaties, effects, 138. 

Conscription, illustration, 29-30. 

Constantinople, control, 136. 

Constantinople, The Disposition 
OP. Talcott Williams, 118-123. 

Contraband, classes of, 60. 

Cooperation, international, 92. 

CouDERT, Frederic R. Neutral 
Rights upon the Seas, 58-65. 

Dawson, Miles M. The significance 
of Our Mission in this War, 10-13. 

Democracy: coercion in, 28-31; en- 
forcement, 29; experiments, 14; fed- 



227 



228 



Index 



eration, 17-18; international pro- 
gram for, 2; peace a result of, 97; 
universal, 218. 

Democracy and World Order, The 
War in its Relation to. Emily 
Greene Balch, 28-31. 

Democracy, Growth of Industrial. 
Arthur E. Holder, 23-27. 

Democratic Organization of the 
Coming Peace Conference. Ed- 
ward A. Filene, 222-226. 

Demburg, Bernard, 186, 194. 

Diplomacy: characteristics, 224-225; 
democratization, 225; futility, 140; 
secret, 29. 

Disarmament and International 
Courts Prerequisites to A Dura- 
ble Peace. James L. Slayden, 92- 
100. 

DuGGAN, Stephen P. Nationality and 
Freedom of Commerce Prerequisites 
to a Durable Peace, 131-136. 

DuTTON, Samuel T. The United 
States and the War, 13-19. 

Dynasty, war against, 86. 

Economic Factors, The, in an En- 
during Peace. E. E. Pratt, 136- 
139. 

England: commercial rivalry between 
Germany and, 137; conditions in, 
114; cooperation between United 
States and, 50; defiance, 105; ex- 
pansion, 137; hostility between Ger- 
many and, 114; industrial system, 
136; naval supremacy, 115. 

England, A Basis for A Durable 
Peace Between Germaisty and. 
WiUiam C. Bullitt, 113-117. 

Europe: balance of power, 107; coop- 
erative, 4; reconstruction, 160; re- 
pudiation, 96. 

European War: America's participa- 
tion, 2; America's relation to, 14; 
causes, 179; issues, 112; origin, 3; 
significance, 216. 

Export trade, advantages, 138. 



Filene, Edward A. Democratic Or- 
ganization of the Coming Peace Con- 
ference, 222-226. 

Financial resources, mobihzation, 26. 

Fisher, Walter L. A League to En- 
force Peace, 185-199. 

Force, Peace Without. S. N. Patten, 
31-40. 

Free trade, meaning, 58. 

Freedom of the press, effects, 141. 

Freedom op the Press, Interna- 
tional, Essential to a Durable 
Peace. David Lawrence, 139-141. 

Freedom of the seas: definition, 58, 59, 
66; German theory, 74; limitations, 
61; principles, 59; questions affect- 
ing, 67. 

Freedom of the Seas. Chandler P. 
Anderson, 65-75. 

French Revolution, principles, 133. 

Germany: army, 117; blockade, 117; 
commercial rivalry between England 
and, 137; commercial system, 136- 
137; conditions in, 114; consolida- 
tion, 144; diplomacy, 73; expansion, 
137; federation, 123; foreign poUcy, 
9; hostility between England and, 
114; intellectual leaders, 191; in- 
ternational ethics, 125; pohcy, 5; 
political revolution, 9, 140; sea 
strength, 21-22; security on sea, 
114; self-defense, 190-191; sub- 
marine warfare, 203; trade, 206. 

Germany and England, A Basis for 
A Durable Peace Between. Wil- 
ham C. BuUitt, 113-117. 

Giddings, Franklin H. The Bases of 
a Just and Enduring Peace, 83-88. 

Government, imiform theory, 151. 

Great Britain, see England. 

Haiti: convention forced in, 168; de- 
mocracy, 171. 

Holder, Arthur E. GROWth of In- 
dustrial Democracy, 23-27. 

Home rule, importance, 36. 



Index 



229 



Honduras: grievances, 174-175; neu- 
trality, 174, 175. 

Industrial Democracy, Growth of. 
Arthur E. Holder, 23-27. 

Industrial legislation, enactment, 25. 

International alliances: 200; avoid- 
ance, 192. 

arbitration; doctrine, 208; prin- 
ciple, 211. 

International Courts, Disarma- 
ment AND, Prerequisites to a Du- 
rable Peace. James L. Slayden, 
92-100. 

International disputes, arbitration, 205. 

government, establishment, 17. 

law: character, 51; explanation, 

53; nature, 51; privileges, 54; prin- 
ciple, 81, 91 ; requirements, 70; scope, 
51; standards, 211; violation, 89. 

peace, basis, 79. 

politics, problems, 222. 

reorganization: plan, 190; prin- 
ciples, 131. 

right: defense, 49; definition, 55; 

determination, 78. 
International Right, The, America 

must Champion. Roland G. Usher, 

49-57. 
Interstate commerce, regulation, 122- 

123. 
Isolation, policy, 100. 
Isolation, The Monroe Doctrine 

AND THE American Policy of, in 

Relation to a Just and Durable 

Peace. John H. Latan6, 100-109. 
Iyenaga, Toyokichi. Japan, America 

and Durable Peace, 124r-128. 

Japan: democratic elements, 131; 

duties, 127; miUtary power, 107; 

naval power, 107; relations between 

America and, 129; spirit, 124. 
Japan, America and Durable Peace. 

Toyokichi Iyenaga, 124-128. 
Japan, Foundations for a Durable 

Peace Between the United States 



AND. Hans von Kaltenbom, 129- 
131. 

Japanese, immigration, 130. 

Jews: history, 162-163; language, 162; 
national aspiration, 164; national 
elements, 162; religion, 163; rights, 
164. 

Jews, The Rights of the, as a Na- 
tion. J. L. Magnes, 160-164. 

Justice: definition, 213; enforcement, 
77. 

Kirchwey, George W, Pax Ameri- 
cana, 40-48. 

Labor: displacement, 16; sacrifices, 23. 

La Fontaine, Henri. On What Prin- 
ciples is the Society of States to be 
Founded, 89-92. 

Language, identitj^, 148. 

Latan:i&, John H. The Monroe Doc- 
trine and the American Policy of 
Isolation in Relation to a Just and 
Durable Peace, 100-109. 

Latin America, relations between 
United States and, 220. 

Lawrence, David. International 
Freedom of the Press Essential to a 
Durable Peace, 139-141. 

League of Nations, Sovereignty 
AND Race as Affected by A. 
Theodore Marburg, 142-146. 

LipPMANN, Walter. The World Con- 
flict in its Relation to American 
Democracy, 1-10. See also, 158. 

McGuiRE, C. E. The Interests and 
Rights of Nationality, 147-153. 

Magnes, J. L. The Rights of the Jews 
as a Nation, 160-164. 

Marburg, Theodore. Sovereignty 
and Race as Affected by a League 
of Nations, 142-146. 

Mihtarism: autocratic, 45; destruc- 
tion, 189; essence, 189; spirit, 210; 
world, 181. 

MiUtary service, compulsory, 179-180. 



230 



Index 



Monroe Doctrine: application, 104- 
107; changes, 195; doctrine of 
world, 90; importance, 219; inter- 
national, 110; maintenance, 102; 
origin, 102-104; vindication, 105, 
106; violation, 167. 

Monroe Doctrine, The, and the 
American Policy of Isolation in 
Relation to a Just and Durable 
Peace. John H. Latan6, 100-109. 

Moral Influences in a Durable 
Peace. Don C. Seitz, 216-219. 

MussEY, Henry R. The Rights of 
Small American Nations, 172-177. 

Nation, the Rights of the Jews as 
A. J. L. Magnes, 160-164. 

National sovereignty, unlimited, 4. 

Nationalism: aims, 78; competitive, 7, 
8; cooperative, 7; development, 147; 
spirit, 46. 

Nationality: basis, 183; definition, 
155; factors, 147; principle, 133- 
135, 159; requirement, 152. 

Nationality and Freedom of Com- 
merce Prerequisites to a Dura- 
ble Peace. Stephen P. Duggan, 131 
-136. 

Nationality, the Interests and 
Rights of. C. E. McGuire, 147- 
153. 

Nations: basic rights, 78; cooperation, 
213; definition, 161; domestic de- 
velopment, 223; free intercourse, 
141; rights, 160; security, 45; union 
of, 143. 

Nations, The Rights of Small, in 
America. Oswald Garrison Villard, 
165-171. 

Nations, The Rights of Small 
American. Henry R. Mussej^ 172- 
177. 

Naval defense, revolution, 15. 

Neutral rights, defense, 59. 

Neutral Rights upon the Seas. 
Frederic R. Coudert, 58-65. 



NeutraUty: abolishment, 6; breach of, 
72. 

Neutrals: commercial rights, 5; in- 
terests, 66; responsibihty, 69; se- 
curity, 118; services, 188. 

Nicaragua: control, 173; economic 
asset, 173; treaty between United 
States and, 173-174, 204; violation 
of treaty rights, 174. 

Panama Canal: control, 121; neutral- 
ization, 121. 

Patten, S. N. Peace without Force, 
31-40. 

Pax Americana. George W. Kirch- 
wey, 40-48. 

Peace: assurance, 189; at any price, 
83-84; code of, 36; definition, 77; 
durable, 112, 124; enforcement, 77; 
essential elements, 81; insurance of, 
96; League to Enforce, 32, 40, 88, 
194; necessity, 51; perfection, 216; 
permanent, 101, 198; preparedness, 
76; program, 46; securing, 144; self- 
enforcing, 36; stabihty, 124; terms 
of, 183; without victory, 87, 188. 

Peace, A Basis for A Durable, Be- 
tween Germany and England. 
WiUiam C. Bullitt, 113-117. 

Peace, A League to Enforce. Wal- 
ter L. Fisher, 185-199. 

Peace, A Yearning for World. 
James M. Beck, 208-216. 

Peace, Disarmament and Interna- 
tional Courts Prerequisites to 
a Durable. James L. Slayden, 92- 
100. 

Peace, Elements of a Just and Du- 
rable. Philip Marshall Brown, 76- 
83. 

Peace, Foundations for a Durable, 
between the United States and 
Japan. Hans von Kaltenbom, 129- 
131. 

Peace, International Freedom op 
the Press Essential to a Dura- 
ble. David Lawrence, 139-141. 



Index 



231 



Peace, Japan, America and Durable. 
Toyokichi lyenaga, 124-128. 

Peace, Moral Influences in a Dura- 
ble. Don C. Seitz, 216-219. 

Peace, Nationality and Freedom of 
Commerce Prerequisites to a Du- 
rable. Stephen P. Duggan, 131- 
136. 

Peace, the Bases of a Just and En- 
during. Franklin H. Giddings, 83- 
88. 

Peace, the Economic Factors in an 
Enduring. E. E. Pratt, 136-139. 

Peace, the Monroe Doctrine and 
THE American Policy of Isola- 
tion in Relation to a Just and 
Durable. John H. Latan^, 100-109. 

Peace, Two Events that Presage A 
Durable. Oscar S. Straus, 110-113. 

Peace Without Force. S. N. Patten, 
31^0. 

Peace conference : democratic organiza- 
tion, 225; weaknesses, 224. 

Peace Conference, Democratic Or- 
ganization of the Coming. Ed- 
ward A. Filene, 222-226. 

Peacemakers, machinists as, 27. 

Pergler, Charles. The Bohemian 
Question, 155-160. 

Pohtics, international cooperation, 24- 
25. 

Post Bellum Period, Equipment for 
THE. Charles H.Sherrill, 219-221. 

Pratt, E. E. The Economic Factors 
in an Enduring Peace, 136-139. 

Preparedness, insurance for peace, 218. 

Pubhc opinion, interchange, 141. 

Race, homogeneity, 148. 

Race, Sovereignty and, as Affected 
by a League op Nations. Theodore 
Marburg, 142-146. 

Railway transportation, reform, 217. 

Reconstruction: cost, 222-223; ex- 
penses, 223. 

Religious unity, interest, 150. 

Russia: autocracy, 18; democracy, 7, 



86, 112, 126; hberaUzation, 156; 
political administration, 94. 

Salvador, grievance, 174-175. 
San Domingo, democracy, 171. 
Seas: access to, 158; freedom of, 36, 

52, 118, 120, 188; neutral rights on, 

119. 
Seas, Freedom of the. Chandler P. 

Anderson, 65-75. 
Seas, Neutral Rights upon the. 

Frederic R. Coudert, 58-65. 
Seitz, Don C. Moral Influences in a 

Durable Peace, 216-219. 
Self government, right, 172. 
Sherrill, Charles H. Equipment 

for the Post Bellum Period, 219-221. 
Slayden, James L. Disarmament and 

International Courts Prerequisites to 

a Durable Peace, 92-100. 
Sovereignty, absolute, 142. 
Sovereignty and Race as Affected 

BY A League of Nations. Theodore 

Marburg, 142-146. 
States: equahty, 90; fundamental 

rights, 81; meaning, 182; principles 

recognized by society of, 90; rela- 
tions between, 91. 
States, on what Principles is the 

Society of, to be Founded? Henri 

La Fontaine, 89-92. 
Straus, Oscar S. Two Events that 

Presage a Durable Peace, 110-113. 
Submarine warfare : evil consequences, 

71-72; purpose, 72-73; result, 126. 
Switzerland, national unity, 149. 
Syria: democracy, 153; Uberty, 153. 
Syria, A Message From. Mrs. Lay- 

yah A. Barakat, 153-154. 

Taxation, increases, 27. 
Taxes, export, 37, 
Trade, freedom, 80. 

United States: arbitration conven- 
tions, 202; arbitration treaties, 209; 
citizenship law, 129; cooperation 



232 



Index 



between Great Britain and, 50; cost 
of government, 95; foreign policy, 
100; fundamentals of government, 
11; international status, 57; Latin 
American policy, 196; national in- 
terests, 200; national policy, 165, 
206; opportunities, 21; organiza- 
tion, 157-158; participation in 
world war, 57; policy, 1; policy of 
isolation, 43; political organization, 
25; reasons for entering war, 40, 154, 
185; relations between Latin Amer- 
ica and, 220; service in war, 45; 
treaties, 201 ; treaty with Nicaragua, 
173-174, 204; world poUcy, 42. 

United States and Japan, Founda- 
tions FOR a Durable Peace be- 
tween THE. Hans von Kaltenbom, 
129-131. 

United States, the, and the War. 
Samuel T. Button, 13-19. 

Usher, Roland G. The International 
Right America Must Champion, 
49-57. 

ViLLARD, Oswald Garrison. The 
Rights of Small Nations in America, 
165-171. 

Von Kaltenborn, Hans. Foimda- 
tions for a Durable Peace between 
the United States and Japan, 129- 
131. 

War: causes, 37, 212, 217; cost, 95; 
declaration, 187; efifect, 39; evil 
consequences, 98-100; external fac- 
tors, 34; history of, 146; justifia- 



biUty, 51; preparedness, 192; pre- 
vention, 67, 76; reasons for, 39; 
subjects of, 211. 

War, The, in its Relation to De- 
mocracy and World Order. Emily 
Greene Balch, 28-31. 

War, The Significance of our Mis- 
sion IN This. Miles M. Dawson, 
10-13. 

War, The United States and the. 
Samuel T. Dutton, 13-19. 

War to Stop War. John Sharp Wil- 
Uams, 178-185. 

Warfare, effectiveness, 185. 

Washington, farewell address, 197. 

WicKERSHAM, Georqb W. Out Com- 
pulsory Arbitration Treaties should 
be Amended, 200-207. 

Williams, John Sharp. War to Stop 
War, 178-185. 

Williams, Talcott. The Disposition 
of Constantinople, 118-123. 

Wilson, President, war message, 201. 

Wood, Henry A. Wire. Planning the 
Future America, 19-23. 

World: federation, 8, 108; international 
relationship, 113; justice, 212. 

World Conflict, The, in its Rela- 
tion TO American Democracy. 
Walter Lippmann, 1-10. 

World Order, The War in its Re- 
lation TO Democracy and. Emily 
Greene Balch, 28-31. 

World peace: means of securing, 39; 
problem, 209. 

World Peace, A Yearning for. 
James M. Beck, 208-216. 



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